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BEK’S FIRST CORNER 


BY MRS. NATHANIEL CONKLIN. 

(JENNIE M. DRINKWATER.) 


I. TESSA WADSWORTH’S DISCIPLINE . #1.50. 

“It is a long while since we have read a story which is more thoroughly satis- 
factory in every respect than this. To be sure it is only a love-story, but it is a 
love-story of a very high order, and one to be thoroughly indorsed. 'The style 
is vigorous and animated; the descriptions are picturesque; the conversations are 
easy, natural, and suggestive; and the characters are drawn with great fidelity 
to life.” — Christian Intelligencer. 

II. RUFS HELPS $1.50. 

“‘Rue’s Helps’ is by Jennie M, Drinkwater, the author of ‘Tessa Wads 
worth’s Discipline.’ That was such a charming book in every way that we felt 
sure of liking this, and we have not been disapp>ointed. It is very interesting and 
it is religious while it deals very naturally with evei^-day sort of people. The 
boys and girls, old and young alike, will relish it. It is the sort of book which 
ought to be multiplied on our Sabbath-school library shelves.” — Congregationalist. 

III. ELECTA 5^1.50. 

“The special charm of this book is that the people in it and the scenes described 
are so natural, so true to e.xperience that the reader finds him.self as much interested 
in them as though they were real persons. This we consider very nearly the per- 
fecticn of literary art.” — Christian Inst7~uctor. 

IV. FIFTEEN; or, Lydias Happenings . • #1.50. 

“ ‘ Fifteen ’ is as sweet and touching a story, for a very unpretending one, as we 
have met with in a long time.” — Congregationalist. 

V. BEFS FIRST CORNER . . . i2mo. $1.50. 

“ It is one of the charms of Miss Drinkwater’s stories, their naturalness and 
home likeness.” — North Protestant. 

VI. ONLY NED; or, Grandmamma^s Lesson. $1.25. 

VII. NOT BREAD ALONE . . . i6mo. $1.25. 

VIII. FRED AND JEANIE, and how they 

learned about God . . . i6mo. $1.25. 


ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, 

New York. 


Bek’s First Corner 


BY 

MRS. NATHANIEL CONKLIN 

(JENNIE M. DRINK\VaTER) 


“Short sentences drawn from a long experience” 


mar 16 1883 " 

WASHIN®'" 


NEW YORK 

ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS 

530 Broadway 



Copyright, 1883, 

By Robert Carter & Brothers. 


Si. Johnland 
Stereotype Foundry, 
Suffolk Co., N. Y. 


Cambridge: 
Press of 

John lYilson Son. 


CONTENTS. 




I. THAT LAST NIGHT 7 

II. JOHN PRENTISS 39 

III. THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING 59 

IV. THAT NIGHT 8 1 

0 

V. THE SECRET IN AN OLD BOOK 93 

VI. BEWILDERED ' . , .120 

VII. THE end" OF SOMETHING I3I 

VIII. MISS SOUTHERNWOOD I4I 

IX. OTHER THINGS I5I 

X. THE LONGEST DAY I58 

XL FAITH AND LITTLE FAITH 1 69 

XII. WORKERS AND SHIRKERS 1 94 

XIII. PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 210 

0 

XIV. PEACE 227 

XV. AT THE FIRST 237 

XVI. PLANS AND PROMISES 27 1 

XVII. WRITTEN FROM ROME 285 

XVIIL SHAKING UP 298 

XIX. ONE SUNDAY 307 

XX. NOT TRUE, THEN 319 

XXL A SUMMER AND A WINTER 332 

XXII. THINGS THAT HAPPENED 360 

XXIII. IN THE HAMMOCK $68 



BEK’S FIRST CORNER. 


I. 

THAT LAST NIGHT. 

“Life is a sliort day; but it is a working day.** 

Hannah Moee. 

It might have been a trial to every one of the 
other girls, this old-fashioned name of hers, but 
it was not to Bek — for two excellent reasons: 
first, because it had a precious history; and 
second, because she did not know how to make 
trials for herself. She had never had a real 
trouble and her faith was too sunshiny to ad- 
mit of trials. 

Eebekah ! The pronunciation was not so “ hor- 
rid,” but in the writing there stood the awkward 
“k” and that heavy “h.” It did matter, of 
course — everything matters at twenty; but there 
was “Bek” left to her, and that had a foreign 
sound, was a wee bit dainty, and so odd ! And 
her mother had written it so from the first. 


8 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER, 


“Bek!” 

Bek made no answer, she was too busy writing 
her name and address upon a square white card 
to lilt her eyes or to answer. Nowadays Bek 
was rather absent-minded. She said that it was 
because she had so many things to think about. 

Kebekah Howe Westerly. 

It looked pretty enough written; it looked 
pretty written in Bek’s characteristic hand. None 
of the girls wrote in her fashion; several of them 
had attempted imitation without perfect success. 

Eebekah I 

Holding the card a little way off she studied 
it critically. Yes, it was “simply and dreadfully” 
Kebekah. 

The quotation is from herself. She is some- 
body worth quoting from. 

The girls had followed her mother’s fashion — 
Gertrude Raymond had brought it from Clovernook 
and had shortened it into “Bek.” The girls were 
Rebekah’s world — her laughing, chatting, dream- 
ing world. Some of the girls preferred Bebe, but 
she liked Beh better, it was like herself — uncom- 
mon. The “uncommon” is not in quotations. 

“ Bek I Speak to me,” commanded Mollie Sher- 
wood impatiently. “ I’ve been watching you three 


THAT LAST NIGHT. 


9 


long minutes and you haven’t even raised those 
glorious orbs.” 

The glorious orbs raised themselves for one 
instant; she was dreaming over such an every-day 
thing as a card to be tacked upon her trunk. 

“I think I heard a sound, but it was in the 
dim distance. I was thinking about home, and 
wondering if now since baby’s advent I could 
find time for all the things I have planned 
to do.” 

“ All those things ! ” repeated Mollie deliberately. 

If Methusaleh’s wife had outlived her husband, 
she couldn’t have done all the things you have 
planned to do.” 

“ System accomplishes all things,” said Bek 
oracularly. *‘Have you been all these years at 
Rutledge Felix and not learned that ? ” 

“ System,” began Mollie comfortably, “ will not 
create two hours a day for you to practice, two 
hours to keep on with French and German, two 
hours to begin Hebrew in with Mr. D unraven, 
three hours for general reading, six for household 
affairs under the conduct of your invaluable Pauline, 
one hour for needlework, five to attend to the 
children, three to be your mother’s special com- 
panion, four to give to all Clovernook — ” 


10 


BEK’S FIRST CORNER. 


“Mollie! Mollie!” laughed Bek, “do give me 
one little minute to rest in.” 

“ ‘ Best is the fitting of self to one's sphere,’ ” 
quoted Mollie; “at that rate you have nothing 
but rest to look forward to.” 

“ I wish I hadn’t quite so many plans,” ac- 
knowledged Bek thoughtfully, rolling up one 
edge of the card. “ One person can’t do every- 
thing; if one could, there would be no need of 
everybody else.” 

“That’s logic and common sense,” returned 
Mollie. “I’d like to know one thing you 
haven’t planned to do. 1 know you were 
dinging your plans in my ears last night when 
I fell asleep.” 

“I can’t give up teaching the children,” Bek 
decided, resting her head against the side of her 
trunk. 

She was a little thing in a gray travelling 
dress curled up on the carpet at the foot of the 
bed in her cosy hall bedroom at Eutledge Felix. 
Mollie Sherwood was one of the day pupils, but 
Mrs. Graves, the preceptress, had given her per- 
mission to spend this last night with her “com- 
rade,” Bek Westerly. 

The other girls bad bosom friends: these two 


THAT LAST NIGHT 


11 


were comrades. That meant fun and fighting 
together. How much fun they had had to- 
gether these last three years at Rutledge Felix, 
and how many things in themselves, in each 
other, and against people and circumstances 
generally they had had to fight against! 

Mrs. Graves in her talks to the girls said 
“contend,” but, freely translated, it meant “fight” 
to Bek. And yet Bek did not look like a fighter. 
The music teacher called her “ the little lady of 
Rutledge Felix.” 

Perched on the foot of the bed Mollie leaned 
over the low foot-board and looked down at her. 

“Lulu expects regular teaching in music; she 
has been teaching herself and is quite a genius; 
Nell and Floy are bright little students and are 
ready to give up the Clovernook school and study 
with me. Chip is counting on my help in several 
things, and now there’s the baby! Mother has 
lovely color and she hops about like a little bird 
from one thing to another, but father thinks she 
isn't strong and is so anxious for me to come 
home! Mother laughs at him, but I know she is 
counting on me, too. And you know my plan of 
coming back here to take charge of the junior 
class.” Bek’s cheeks were in a glow. 


12 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER, 


“Why don’t you do both?” asked Mollie 
gravely. 

“I wish I could,” said Bek, as gravely. 

Mollie bent over and pulled the rings of hair 
on Bek’s forehead, the light, fluffy, babyish rings 
of hair. 

Kebekah of old was “ fair ” to look upon, but our 
Bebekah was rather dark despite her gray eyes 
and pale golden hair. How it chanced that the 
dark, clear complexion accompanied the eyes 
and hair that were her father’s legacy, nobody 
knew, unless dark, old Aunt Kebekah threw it 
down to her “that morning she was born.” 

To be frank, that complexion was something 
of a trial to Bek. 

“Do you remember — last night?” asked Bek 
after a pause. 

The question came with some effort. 

“Well! What of it?” questioned Mollie im- 
patiently. “Mr. Rutledge doesn’t live in this 
world; and the idea of asking us to promise to 
live on earth as we ought to live in Heaven. 
And you did promise, rash child, you were the 
only one of us nineteen graduates that would 
promise. Aren’t you sorry now?” 

“No,” said Bek, decidedly, “I am more and 


THAT LAST NIGHT. 


13 


more glad every hour. But you did not put it 
as he did. He asked us to pray ‘Thy will be 
done on earth as it is done in Heaven’ and to 
promise that we would try to do it on earth 
as it is done in Heaven.” 

“ I don’t see how you dared,” said Mollie. 

“I don’t see how I didn’t dare,” retorted Bek. 
“Whose will is to be done has got to be set- 
tled some time and I settled it for myself once 
and forever last night.” 

“It frightens me,” acknowledged Mollie, “we 
don’t know what dreadful things He may choose 
for us.” 

The serious look deepened in Mollie’s mischiev- 
ous eyes. In Bek’s eyes the serious look sweet- 
ened; she was not afraid. 

“It was a reasonable promise,” Bek said, “I 
like to do reasonable things. 1 wish you would 
promise, too, Mollie.” 

“1 can’t,” said Mollie, with a wilful quiver ot 
the lip, “I can’t give up my will in everything 
and do — that other will as he said the saints 
and angels do : unhesitatingly, cheerfully, unques- 
tioningly. I have to question. I want the things 
I want. Why, Bek, don’t you want your own 
way, at all.” 


14 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


“Certainly I do. I want everything I want 
until God says no. That’s the thing — to be will- 
ing for Him to say no or yes. And never will 
yes to His no or will no to His yes. And to 
do it without a question, without a murmur, with- 
out a pause.” 

“You don’t mean to say you can do that?” 
questioned Mollie in sheer surprise. 

“No, indeed,” said Bek, with a little laugh, 
“that is what I am starting out to do. I’m not 
a saint in Heaven yet, only the poorest kind of 
a saint on earth. But one spark is real fire, you 
know.” 

“ I know you are real fire,” said Mollie assured 
that the stand her comrade had taken was not 
the result of fanaticism or a too readily kindled 
enthusiasm; Mr. Kutledge or Miss Southernwood 
had not urged her; it was all of her own free 
will. 

“ How can you be willing not to choose for 
yourself?” reasoned Mollie, still with rebellion in 
her tone. “Don’t you want to choose whether 
to stay here and teach or whether to go home, 
and don’t you want to choose your life at home ? 
Don’t you want to choose all your future ? Don’t 
you want to choose whether you shall be married 


THAT LAST NIGHT. 


15 


or not, and you surely want to choose your hus- 
band,” Mollie protested, indignation gathering in 
her eyes. 

Bek did not smile ; Mollie was in solemn earnest. 

She would not acknowledge it to Mollie for any- 
thing, but last night, before she had promised, she 
had considered this — her possible future. 

Flushing as she spoke she said: 

“I am willing about that, too.” 

“Somebody might be chosen for you that you 
couldn’t endure; somebody not educated, or con- 
genial, or distinguished in any way, without 
money or position — and then what would you do ? ” 

Bek laughed. 

“ I’m afraid I haven’t considered the money or 
position.” 

“ You haven’t considered anything, you see ! ” 
Mollie hurried on, heatedly. “ Suppose he should 
be intemperate or — somebody who had to work 
with his own hands to support you.” 

Bek laughed again. 

“1 think He knows what He is getting me 
ready for; or perhaps I am getting ready to be 
the loveliest old maid in existence, another Miss 
Southernwood, for instance.” 

“ Horrid ! ” ejaculated Mollie. 


16 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


“ I am sure He will choose one of His own dis- 
ciples.” 

“You are not sure anything about it. You 
can’t be satisfied unless you choose for your- 
self.” 

“ His way of choosing may be signified by let- 
ting me choose,” said Bek. 

“That’s sophistry,” said Mollie, crossly. 

“You don’t know what ‘sophistry’ is,” answered 
Bek. 

“I know about this. A friend in India wrote 
me about it. Wasn’t she indignant? So was I. 
You will be doing some such thing some day. A 
young lady somewhere in Europe let her photo- 
graph be sent to a missionary in India who wanted 
a wife and after some correspondence, I suppose^ 
he asked her to come out and marry him. And 
she went. And when he saw her, he was not 
satisfied, and refused to marry her. And what 
did she do then but marry another missionary 
who was satisfied with her ! What do you think 
of that?” asked Molly in a triumphant tone. 

“ She was not an American girl nor an English 
girl,” said Bek. 

“No.” 

“You know just what I think! I can’t explain 


THAT LAST NIGHT, 


17 


just wliat I mean; but if you will wait long 
enough, I’ll show you.” 

“I’ll wait,” promised Mollie, mockingly. 

“My life may be a busy life with no time or 
thought for — such things,” said Bek, indefinitely. 

“That will be just as bad,” exclaimed Mollie, 
“that is no destiny at all.” 

“I don’t have to think about it now — I don’t 
have efver to think about it. I don’t need ever to 
plan for myself at all. All I have to do is to lis- 
ten and obey. See how much more time I have 
than you — always at leisure from myself. I have 
time for other people. You have to make 
plans and work hard to carry them out, and 
how can you be sure they will succeed. Noth- 
ing would frighten me so much as being left to 
have my own way. It would be like rushing on 
in the dark and never knowing what you would 
rush into or rush against.” 

“I think you are horrid to talk to me like that,” 
pouted Mollie. “I only came to stay with you 
that we might have our last talk and now you 
have spoiled it all. I wanted to plan ever so 
many things for us to do.” 

Bek arose slowly, found a small hammer and 
six tacks on the little table close to the wall and 


18 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


fastened the card upon one end of her trunk with 
an absent-minded look in her eyes. 

When Bek was grave, she was very grave. 
Was she spoiling the “last talk”? In comfort- 
ing herself was she taking Mollie’s comfort away ? 

“ So did I, and so I do,” Bek exclaimed spring- 
ing towards her and catching her in her arms. 

“ I don’t suppose I shall see you for ever so 
long,” said Mollie, breaking a silence of two 
minutes. 

“Why, do you sail so soon?” 

“ As soon as ever we can. My things are about 
ready. If you would only not go home to-mor- 
row, but come and stay with us until we sail! 
Oh, why can’t you ? That’s the loveliest plan of 
all.” 

“There’s mother and the new baby,” hesitated 
Bek, “if it were not for that — ” 

“The baby will keep,” suggested Mollie. 

“And mother will keep — wishing for me,” re- 
plied Bek. 

“House work and teaching children and taking 
care of a crying baby!” 

Mollie’s lip curled in school-girl fashion, hap- 
pily Bek’s eyes were on the diamond ring that 
she was twisting around on Mollie’s “engage- 


THAT LAST NIGHT. 


19 


merit” finger; Mollie might not have enjoyed Bek’s 
retort. Bek would not figkt for herself, but she 
was ready to fight for that “crying baby.” 

“And my life is a trip to Europe and a tour 
through Europe and coming home to be married! 
Oh, how different your life is from mine, you poor 
little Kebekah! You poor, dear, darling, doleful, 
little Bek!” 

There was a difference, a difference not pleas- 
ant to contemplate. And how Bek loved good 
times. How she would have enjoyed the travel 
in Europe and the blessed coming home after- 
ward. Mollie was the only child and she her- 
self was one of six and her father was her step- 
father. 

Mollie’s gayety returned as Bek listened and 
laughed and planned good times after the home 
coming; a letter was to be written every week by 
each of them, “rain or shine,” and each was to 
make the other an annual visit. 

“I want you to admire Ernest and hear him 
talk,” said Mollie persuasively. 

“I do — and have,” said Bek, seriously. 

Garit you come, possibly?” coaxed Mollie. 

The disappointed look in Bek’s eyes was not 
encouraging. 


20 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER, 


“ Father and mother would be so pleased, too.’ 

“But mother — I can’t think of her disappoint- 
ment. She was almost counting the hours in the 
letter I had last night.” 

“But she is so unselfish! If she only knew how 
much you want to stay! Can’t you telegraph? 
Your father or Chip will be in Cumberland to- 
morrow^send it to the care of some one there 
whom they will be sure to see! Now it’s all 
planned!” cried Mollie, clapping her hands. 
“And you will stay and see us off, go down to 
the steamer and everything!” 

For one instant Bek wavered, then she saw the 
shade of surprise and disappointment in her mo- 
ther’s eyes and decided quickly. 

“I want to ever so much, but I couldn’t be 
happy thinking of mother.” 

“I know she wouldn’t care,” pouted Mollie. 
“You don’t think about me.” 

Pushing Bek’s arm away she sprang from her 
seat on the low bed and went to the window and 
leaned out. 

^t was not dark yet, the long summer twilight 
was still lingering. Mollie bent forward and 
pulled a white rose from the bush that climbed 
nearly to the window-sill. There was a shadow 


TIIAT LAST NIGHT. 


21 


in Bek’s eyes; it would be so long before she 
would see Mollie again. Oh, why had they not 
planned this before ! It was lovely at home, but 
she would miss the girls and so many other things, 
and there would be work to do and not time for 
the things she loved best. This visit would be 
her “ graduation present.” She had forgotten 
that she would not have a graduation present. 
Mollie’s watch and chain from her father were 
elegant, and this proposed European tour was to 
be her present from her mother; none of the other 
girls had anything as grand as Mollie’s gifts, but 
every one had something beside the class ring, 
and she would have only that. 

And might she have this if she chose ? Might 
she have it when her mother was saying to herself, 
“ To-morrow Bek will be here.” 

She was almost sure that she would not have 
chosen her quiet, uneventful life for herself — but 
she had not chosen it for herself; that was the 
glory and beauty of her life. Was it chosen 
twenty years ago ? Was it not chosen from the 
very beginning when He had chosen her ? 

The bewildered thoughts in Bek’s mind did not 
take this form until long afterward. 

She was a little troubled about Mollie ; the back 


22 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


of her head was not very encouraging, and there 
was a set of the lips as she turned slightly that 
Bek knew of old. Mollie loved Bek better than 
any one excepting Ernest Vanderveer, while Bek 
loved several people better than she loved Mollie. 
Bek loved her mother better, and to-night Mollie 
was sure of it. Mollie once said that she hated 
English History because Bek cared to read it 
sometimes instead of talking to her. 

This serious difference of opinion to-night 
might make a break. It was Mollie’s last re- 
quest and Bek would not grant it. 

Bek’s trunk was packed and the few last things 
piled upon a chair to be laid in in the morning; 
there was nothing to do now until bedtime but 
to talk, and Mollie was no longer in the mood 
for talking. Mollie might not be in the mood 
to speak again for some hours. She pulled her 
rose to pieces and scattered the petals, then 
leaned farther out, resting on the window-sill. 

“ Mollie ! ” said Bek brightly. 

Mollie did not stir or speak. 

“ Mollie, let’s go down and walk up and down 
the shrubbery walk just as we have done all 
these years, and we’ll make three wishes and 
see if they will come true.” 


TI/AT LAST NIGHT. 


23 


“Tm very well satisfied here,” said Mollie, in- 
difiTerently. 

The quick color touched Bek’s eyes and brow, 
she leaned her elbow against the low foot-board 
and tapped the carpet with the toe of her boot. 

At that instant Mollie would have given her 
watch and chain to recall her last words; she 
loved Bek tenfold more than Bek knew. Bek 
tapped the carpet pained and hurt. Might she 
disappoint her mother for Mollie’s sake. But her 
mother was weak, and the baby was not well — 
the little baby not a week old. How could Mollie 
be so selfish and inconsiderate ! 

The sullen look was still about the corner of 
Mollie’s mouth; Beck would not speak again to 
be rebuffed. 

There were her silk gloves to be mended, Lulu’s 
white tie to be finished, and the lace to be put 
upon the ruffle of Floys white apron. It was 
too early to light the gas, but she could not sit 
and do nothing with Mollie’s mute uncomfortable 
presence so near her. As she arose and struck 
a match the uncomfortable presence interfered in 
an irritated voice: 

“ Don’t light the gas, I beg of you ; if you want 
to sew or read, go somewhere else.” 


24 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER, 


Extinguishing the match, without a word, Bek 
dropped back into her old position on the bed, 
resting her head on the foot-board. The small 
room was close and hot despite the large, wide- 
open window; it was somewhat in confusion also: 
Mollie hated a “littered up” room, she wished 
she were home in her own airy chamber with 
nothing to make her uncomfortable. She might 
have known that this bedroom would be too 
small for them both to sleep in this hot night. 
She picked another rose and pulled it to pieces. 
She found something to do if Bek did not. 

This evening that you see these girls for the 
first time, Mollie is twenty and Bek nearer 
twenty-one as she had drearily observed to Mol- 
lie half an hour since. 

Bek’s girlhood was too delicious a thing to give 
up lightly; she almost wanted to keep it all her 
life. Long dresses and putting up her hair she 
had fought against until the girls had laughed 
and teased and coaxed her into adopting a style 
more suited to her “years and responsibilities.” 
It was not the years in themselves that she held 
herself back from; it was the girlhood that the 
years were taking away and the womanhood they 
were bringing. This dread was wholly owing to 


THAT LAST NIGHT. 


25 


an unfortunate remark made by one of the teach- 
ers on the first day of her arrival at Kutledge 
Felix. Homesick, impressible Bek never forgot 
it. How sorrowful and stern Miss Aiken had 
looked as she said: 

“Girls, enjoy yourselves now, for, believe me, 
this is your happiest time ; your only happy time, 
I am tempted to say.” 

Some of the girls laughed and called her a 
“ disappointed old maid,” but silent Kebekah 
neither laughed nor forgot. She wondered that 
Miss Aiken found so many things to laugh and 
talk about if she had lived through all her happy 
times. 

But another infiuence was stronger in Bek’s 
school life: Helen Southernwood, the teacher of 
the senior class. 

Miss Southernwood often said to the girls that 
her own life grew brighter every year and that 
she was hoping to be some day like Mrs. Sher- 
wood, author of “Little Henry and his Bearer,” 
“ the very happiest old woman that cumbers this 
earth.” Therefore, it came to pass under Miss 
Southernwood’s sunny guardianship, that binding 
the long braids into a knot or twisting the soft 
mass into a coil at the top of her head, meant. 


26 


BEK’S FIRST CORNER. 


not only womanhood to her, but the preparing 
for a happy old womanhood, and she put away 
childishness, but not childlikeness, with the rib- 
bons that had tied the ends of the glossy, gold 
braids. 

Miss Southernwood said that Bek’s hair was as 
expressive of herself as her lips or her eyes. As 
it nestled against you, it was a very comforting 
head. 

At eighteen, before she had been three months 
at boarding-school, her dresses were made longer 
and the braids caused to disappear altogether. 
She laughed at herself and drew a full length 
pen-picture of herself for her mother and Lulu. 
She was a little sorry that old aunt Kebekah had 
not lived to see the beginning of her growing up. 

At home as sister-mother, she was becoming 
a wee bit old-fashioned, “growing just like her 
mother every day,” Pauline said. It might be a 
lovely thing to be just like her lovely mother 
by and by; but at seventeen one does not need 
to be just like forty. But after three months’ 
association with Mollie Sherwood and all the 
other girls, she was as much the modern school 
girl as any of them, as any of the brightest 
and deepest of them, as with any of the lightest 


THAT LAST NIGHT. 


27 


and sweetest of them. “Unspoiled” was often 
in Miss Southernwood’s mind as she looked at 
Bek and listened to her. Not that there w^as 
anything negative about her; there was a great 
deal in her to be spoiled. 

More than one student as bright as Bek had 
been graduated from Kutledge Felix, pert and self- 
sufficient; not lovable in womanliness, and not 
remarkable enough in mental culture to make 
a mark anywhere; the woman had been spoiled 
and the student was not noticeable. If Bek had 
not been her own sweet, unspoilable self Miss 
Southernwood would have feared for her. But 
the ordeal was safely passed, little Bek Westerly 
was little Bek Westerly still. 

Bek was too real to be spoiled, and Gertrude 
Raymond, the only other Clovernook girl, just 
escaped being intellectual enough. In every men- 
tal race they undertook together Bek came out 
far ahead. Gertrude tried very hard to be sweet 
as well as to be bright. Bek never knew that 
any one had to try to be either. No training 
could make her superficial or flippant. The su- 
perficial and the flippant at Rutledge Felix were 
those that Miss Southernwood groaned most about. 
Bek was her comfort, her hope, her inspiration. 


28 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


To see Bek in blossom was one ot the things 
Miss Southernwood lived for. And, now, Bek’s 
school days were ended, she was one of nineteen 
sweet girl-graduates, and she was going home — 
with Tennyson’s “ Princess ” in the tray of her trunk 
and with her brain fairly buzzing with the plans 
of work that were crowded into it. School days 
were ended and she was not so very old; she 
would not be so very old until she was twenty- 
five, until she had turned that “first corner.” 
Miss Southernwood called twenty-five the first 
corner and had thrown a halo around it. “ There 
is usually something decided by that time,” she 
had said. This indefinite something to be decided 
gave Bek a tingle from head to foot. She was so 
quiet, graceful, and self-possessed that few beside 
Miss Southernwood suspected what a little steam- 
engine she was. She was a little thing, stand- 
ing in her slippers five feet one, and slight enough 
for the girls to liken her to a willow wand, with 
a dark, round face, and a profile with soft, full 
curves that was the prettiest thing about her; 
after studying that profile the fire and gentle- 
ness of her eyes and the fun and tremor of her 
lips were not in the least bit surprising. The 
gray eyes paled and flushed, deepening to black ; 


THAT LAST NIGHT. 


29 


her one unchanging beauty was the fluffy gold 
hair that would persist in curling and waving 
down her neck and pushing itself over her forehead 
until the shining rings touched the heavy, golden 
eyebrows and sometimes the bright lashes. 

She was “lovely” all the girls said, and “stylish” 
in an original, dainty way; but no one ever "called 
her pretty ; strangers oftener remarked : “ How odd 
looking that little Miss Westerly is!” The girls 
thought she just escaped being bewitching and 
exquisite ; but at twenty one has time to overtake 
things just escaping. Even those who thought 
her odd looking found her so happy and sweet 
that they forgot she had escaped anything. Her 
eyes and lips always reminded you of one brood- 
ing over some good thing that was coming true; 
even when they were sad or perplexed they did 
not forget this. 

Miss Southernwood said that Bek Westerly was 
the sunniest Christian she knew. Miss Southern- 
wood knew that she had not escaped anything: 
and Miss Southernwood understood her better 
than any one else in the world. Bek said won- 
deringly sometimes that she had never experi- 
enced a real trouble in her life; her blessings 
had always come just in time, perhaps because 


80 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


she had a way of expecting them. Her father 
had died before she could say “papa,” and her 
mother was as precious as a mother in a book, — 
more precious; she was a mother in real life. 
(But it is the real life that makes the books.) Al- 
though she was sorrowfully in doubt about her- 
self, about her fitness to be herself, she was more 
than satisfied to be Bek Westerly, after all, and 
had never once sighed to exchange herself with 
Nora Reed, the beauty of the class, or with Mar- 
ion Harose who wrote poetry and had it printed, 
with Grace Holden, the heiress, with Gertrude 
Raymond who always did the right thing at just 
the right time and who was never impulsive or 
rash, or even jfith her best friend, Mollie Sher- 
wood who was going to Europe with her mother 
and then coming home to be married. 

She was glad and satisfied to be Bek Westerly 
because only herself could learn God’s secret 
thoughts towards herself. “ I know the thoughts 
that I think towards you,” God has said. Grace 
Holden was content to be herself because she had 
a rich inheritance, Nora Reed was rejoiced to be 
herself because no one at Rutledge Felix could 
compare with her in personal beauty, Gertrude 
Raymond was glad to be herself because of her 


THAT LAST NIGHT 


31 


mission to set everybody else right, and Mollie 
Sherwood congratulated herself because of the 
honor of being chosen by Ernest Vanderveer. 

What a poor little comfort in being herself 
they would have thought Bek Westerly had! 

“ Bek Westerly will do something unusual 
before she’s through,” Mrs. Rutledge said this 
very morning. 

Mrs. Rutledge thought she understood girls; 
she had been “ house-mother ” at Rutledge Felix 
thirty-five years. But Bek was not half “ through ” 
yet, and the nature of her unusualness was not 
even suspected. §he had not the appeamnce of 
a “wild” girl, as mischievous Mollie Sherwood 
had; her voice was low and as clear and sweet 
as the note of a thrush; her words and phrases, 
all her school-girl exclamations, were as refined 
as energetic, she had no taste for school-girl slang, 
and her manner — her manner was purely her own, 
as much an exponent of herself as the curves of 
her cheek and the waves of her hair; slightly 
defiant when opposed, a trifle saucy whether 
she dared or not, as frank as a child of five, 
self-possessed and without one atom of self- 
consciousness. 

Not remarkable, at all, as you discover — only 


32 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


Bek Westerly, a country maiden, with three years 
of city training, sometimes breezy, sometimes 
abrupt, but always a lady. 

She was watching the turn of Mollie’s head, 
the uneasiness of her attitude and that sullen 
twitch in the droop of her lips with a mistiness 
in her eyes that betokened surrender. But she 
knew Mollie better than you or I, and when she 
spoke she only said: 

“I wonder if Pauline will be sent away, and 
I shall have to take her place.” 

Mollie turned, radiant and subdued. It was 
like Bek not to notice her mood and take up the 
thread where it had been dropped. 

“ You ! Of all people ! I imagine your pretty 
clothing switching around in that kitchen.” 

“ My pretty wardrobe will be exhausted by and 
by and not soon renewed ! Aunt Kebekah’s money 
is all gone and mother has none for me. Father 
is always losing money and harrowing himself 
by risking more and losing more. He has been 
successful since I’ve been at school, I believe.” 

“Bather a gloomy outlook for you. I’d stay 
here and support myself if I were you.” 

“Mother needs me,” said Bek simply. 

“ I don’t see how those children have any claim 


THAT LAST NIGHT. 


33 


on yon,” Mollie ran on indignantly, “ they are not 
your own flesh and blood.” 

“ Do you forget they are my mother’s children ? ” 
asked Bek quietly, but she colored with anger. 

“ But you don’t care for your step-father,” 
Mollie hastened to interpose. 

It was queer, but Mollie was afraid of Bek 
when Bek was angry. 

“Mother cares for him, and so I do. He is 
very kind to me. He treats me as he treats 
Lulu, although I am so much older. I confess 
I would rather stay here and teach than go 
home and take Pauline’s place. And I couldn't 
do it. She is a strong German woman and I 
never washed in my life; but I can iron. Mr. 
Rutledge has made me a good offer and I could 
have this same room to myself as I’ve had all 
this time. I might take Miss Southernwood’s 
position in time. I would be almost satisfied 
to do her work in the world.. Oh, how I want 
to stay no tongue can tell.” 

“ Is that your highest ambition ? ” asked Mollie 
scornfully. “I want to be a senator’s wife.” 

“I hope you may,” laughed Bek. 

“I would stay if I ’v^^ere you. You were only 
four years old when your mother married again, 


84 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER, 


she likes the other children just as well; she 
has them, what does she want you for ? I 
want you, Bek. I belong to you,” coaxed Mollie, 
in her pretty way. 

A tap at the door was a relief to both; Mollie 
sprang forward to open it, thinking that she 
could embrace even Miss Aiken if she proved 
to be the intruder. 

But the lovely white head and lovely tinted 
cheeks were not Miss Aiken’s. 

“0, Miss Southernwood,” cried both the girls 
joyfully. 

Miss Southernwood smiled and approaching 
Bek laid her hand upon her hair. 

Miss Southernwood’s hand was a benediction in 
itself. 

“ Miss Southernwood ! I need something ! I 
don’t know what it is. I want t® come back 
so much — I want to be with you, I want to 
work here among the girls, I want to support my- 
self and — there’s mother!” 

Miss Southernwood looked down into the eyes 
that lifted themselves in such earnest appeal; 
the tender, wistful, luminous eyes touched her 
inexpressibly. 

Miss Southernwood would never know how she 


THAT LAST NIGHT. 


35 


would have loved her own child, but she knew 
how she loved Bek Westerly. 

“ I don’t want my own way, and I don’t know 
what the other way is.” 

‘‘ Oh, dear me ! ” cried Mollie, “ you two people 
are too transcendental for me. When Bek doesn’t 
say anything, I know what she means better than 
when she speaks.’ 

“As somebody said, ‘Speech is- to conceal 
thought,’ ” laughed Bek. “ I know I am selfish. 
It will be more than hard for me to stay home 
and take Pauline’s place when 1 may stay here 
and revel in books^. I worked hard before I came 
to school, for mother gets tired so soon; but I was 
always looking forward to study and teaching. 
And now mother seems to want me so!” 

Bek brushed away a few perplexed tears. 

Mollie’s life was decided for her; all the other 
girls seemed to know just what they would do 
next. 

Shall I give you my help ? ” asked Miss South 
ernwood softly. 

Mollie drew nearer and stood beside Bek. Miss 
Southernwood’s voice and manner seemed a part 
of the twilight. 

“ Now that you are ready for work — so ready for 


36 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


work, I want you to have my help; it was not 
given to me until I was twice your score of years. 
It helps me every hour.” 

Mollie looked interested; Bek’s eyes were in- 
tense. 

“We who believe in Christ are already living 
ur eternal life: he that believeth liaili — hath al- 
ready, not shall have by and by, eternal life. We 
are already in Christ’s kingdom, living out His 
plan, doing His bidding, keeping His word; we 
are doing this as really, although not as perfectly 
as we shall do it in His kingdom in Heaven. His 
kingdom is so unbounded that the place where 
you and I live and obey is within its limits. Eut- 
ledge Felix and Clovernook are both within its 
walls. If you were in Heaven to-day, you would 
not be anxious about doing or not doing, going or 
staying — there would be but one thing to do — His 
will. There is but one thing to do now — His will. 
This truth simplifies every perplexity for me. Ask 
Him what you may do and do it, that’s all. If He 
permit you to make a mistake, the mistake is a 
part of His will, too. Don’t be afraid of making 
a mistake, be as willing to do that for Him as any- 
thing else. You may think that you have made 
a mistake when you haven’t at all. Do the thing 


THAT LAST NIGHT. 


37 


that is most like Him — the thing He would do 
if He were you — and rejoice with all your 
heart.” 

Mollie looked mystified; Bek was content. 

“ I came to take you away, both of you. J ohn 
Prentiss, who takes me home with him to-morrow ; 
speaks to fathers and mothers and older sisters to- 
night in the lecture room of our church and I want 
Bek to hear him. He is my boy. His mother was 
my dearest friend, and John and Janet are very 
near to me. He came from Clovernook to-day, 
he is your pastor’s nephew, Bek.” 

“ Oh, that Mr. ^ Prentiss ! Marne Dunraven’s 
cousin. She has talked about his coming for 
years.” 

“ He’s your Mr. Prentiss, too,” said Miss South- 
ernwood. 

“Yes,” assented Bek, flushing. 

How she had been looking forward to this 
meeting! Was he tall and grave and solemn? 
Would he make her a set speech? 

“Now, girlses, put on your things and come. 
There’s the bell this instant.” Miss Southern- 
wood’s voice was not like the twilight now. 

“It doesn’t mean me,” said Mollie. “Pm nei- 
ther father nor mother nor older sister.” 


38 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


“ But you want to see Mr. Prentiss,” persuaded 
Bek. 

“No, I don’t. I don’t like people who are al- 
ways telling me my duty. I’ll stay here and read 
or go down and play for Mrs. Rutledge.” 

“I want to go very much,” said Bek. 

“ Of course you do,” Mollie muttered under her 
breath, “you don’t care how much you spoil our 
last night.” 

“ I don’t see why you won’t come,” urged Bek. 

“ It isn’t my fault that I wasn’t born somebody’s 
father or mother or older sister,” laughed Mollie, 
“ besides, I expected to play to-night for Mrs. Rut- 
ledge.” 


II. 

JOHN PEENTISS. 

**Is the world all grown up ? ” — Chaeles Lamb. 

While Bek and Miss Southernwood were walking 
slowly towards the lecture room, I must tell you 
how it came to pass that Bek was sent to board- 
ing-school at Kutledge Felix and how Miss South- 
ernwood’s “ boy,” the Keverend John Prentiss, 
had become Bek’s “hero.” 

He was not a hero for anything that he had 
done exactly, hardly for what he was expected to 
do, he was only a hero because, when Bek was sev- 
enteen, she had begun to make him a hero in her 
imagination of him. It was because of him that 
she was sent to boarding-school. Some one was 
to begin at the beginning and Bek thought that 
he had begun at the beginning of this, not know- 
ing that an unselfish spot in her own grateful 
heart had been the real beginning. Or, perhaps, 
it was farther back still, that day when her fa- 


40 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


ther, a little boy in his own home, had scolded 
somebody for not being kind to old Aunt Kebek- 
ah. She had been “ old ” Aunt Eebekah ever 
since anybody could remember. After that she 
went out west to keep house for a distant rela- 
tive, and after the relative died she did various 
things that people did not know much about, 
and, at last, did something that everybody knew 
about — she married a rich old man. 

Bek’s father was struggling through college 
the day she married and after that day the strug- 
gle was ended; there was no struggle through 
the seminary course; even after his settlement 
at Clovernook, his first charge, the same old thin 
envelope came enclosing the same kind of a check, 
it came until his funeral expenses were paid, it 
even came until Bek’s mother wrote to her that 
she was engaged to be married to a prosperous 
farmer, James Maurice. 

There were neither checks nor envelopes of 
any kind after that; Bek’s mother did not know, 
until Bek was fourteen, whether or not Aunt Ke- 
bekah had received that last letter. But she knew 
on Bek’s fourteenth birthday, for there came a 
letter to Bek in the same upright hand. 

That night in June! How well Bek remem- 


JOHN PRENTISS. 


41 


bered it! Lulu was ten years old then, Chip nearly 
nine, and the twins, Nell and Floy, just seven. 
Two babies had died, and her mother was sorrowful 
and not at all strong. That birthday had been a 
crooked sort of day, despite her mother’s efforts to set 
things straight. It was ironing day and Pauline 
had a sick headache and could not iron the damp- 
ened clothes, and Nell and Floy were both poi- 
soned on their faces and- hands, and it was not 
till five o’clock that Bek and her mother could 
start for the Parsonage where Bek was invited 
to take tea with her Sunday-school teacher, Marne 
Dunraven, because it was her fourteenth birthday. 
On the way home they found Aunt Eebekah’s 
letter at the post-office. She remembered the an- 
niversary and she wanted Bek to remember her. 

“I am a hard, proud old woman,” she wrote, 
“ I thought if your mother could get along without 
me I could get along without her. But I want 
to hear from her and from you. I’ve been read- 
ing over the letter your father wrote me the very day 
you were born. He promised me that he would 
give you my old-fashioned name and there never 
should be any ‘ c’ in it. There was some gratitude 
in his heart. ]\Iy husband is dead, and liis rela- 


43 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


tives are all dead. I have money enough to live 
on comfortably, and J ohn Prentiss, your minister’s 
nephew, is my young pastor and comes often to 
see me. That is all the young life I have. I live 
alone with my old housekeeper. I shall never 
leave my home; my relations have died; I arn 
eighty years old and I am writing this letter with 
my own right hand. I suppose it is not very 
often on the line, for my eyes get worse every 
day. I am as straight as I ever was and I have 
lost none of my faculties. Mr. Prentiss likes 
to argue with me. He has some young ideas — 
just as your father had, but he is a good friend 
to a friendless old woman. I never could make 
friends. Do you maJce friends. Your father lived 
to be a minister but two years; I should have 
visited him if he had lived. I hope to get ac- 
quainted with him before long. His home is not 
so far away from me as yours is. 

“If you are like your father, you will write to 
me often. Your loving old grand aunt, 

“Rebekah Howe Marston.” 

“I’ll write and I’ll keep it up, too,” promised 
Bek energetically. 

“I wish you would,” encouraged her mother. 


JOHN PRENTISS, 


43 


“I have so much and she has so little. Mrs. 
Dun raven spoke of her this afternoon. Mr. Pren- 
tiss has written to them about her. He says she 
is as queer as she can be, and growing queerer ” 

“ That’s because she hasn’t anybody to keep her 
from being queer,” said Bek, decidedly. “ I’ll be- 
gin this very night to make friends.” 

And so she did. She began that very night 
to make a friend of Aunt Bebekah; very inno- 
cently and unsuspiciously, however, for she only 
thought of being Aunt Eebekah’s friend. Aunt 
Kebekah’s brief but speedy reply was laid away 
in the top drawer of her bureau to be taken out 
and looked at when her resolution flagged and 
to be kept there as a constant reminder that 
on every Wednesday a letter must be written to 
that little town in the west. 

“Tell me everything about your home,” Aunt 
Rebekah wrote. “I have lived my life, now I 
want to look on and see how another Rebekah 
lives hers.” 

This other Rebekah not only enjoyed living 
her life, but she enjoyed sharing it with some- 
body who seemed to have so little of life to 
live. She wondered if there were anything 
she did not tell Aunt Rebekah about. It was 


44 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


dull work sometimes when fun, or work, or study 
pulled hard in some other direction, but Bek 
found it as hard to break a resolution as some 
people do to keep one, and then Aunt Eebekah 
was counting on having it Saturday afternoon, 
and how could she disappoint the loving old 
heart, and then — this spurred her on, — she was 
paying a debt of gratitude that her father had 
not lived to pay himself. He had meant to 
brighten Aunt Eebekah^ old age, her mother 
said. 

“Mother, I wish I could help her get some 
of the things she has missed,” Bek sighed one 
day. 

“The thing she has missed most is loving 
people; I think she is getting some of it in 
loving you.” 

Bek wrote every week for three years, the 
letters growing longer and fuller as her own 
life grew and was filled. Eeplies were rare 
the first year, the second year they ceased en- 
tirely in her own hand; they were simply sug- 
gestions, thanks and brief messages in a round, 
businesslike hand, signed “J. P. for Mrs. Eebekah 
Marston.” During the third year the messages 
were appreciative words and entreaties for Bek 


JOHN PRENTISS. 


45 


to keep on writing. At last, after three years and 
ten days, when Bek was seventeen years and 
ten days old there came a letter from Mr. Pren- 
tiss announcing Mrs. Marston’s sudden death, and 
stating that a legacy of thirty-five hundred dol- 
lars had been left to Kebekah Howe Westerly. 
It was her last request that the entire sum should 
be spent upon her grand niece’s education; she 
had spoken of the boarding-school for young la- 
dies known as Kutledge Felix where Miss Helen 
Southernwood taught, and if the bequest were 
not sufficient to defray the necessary expenses 
of tuition, board, clothing, incidental expenses, 
including pocket money, the same was to be 
made known to himself and the deficiency would 
be supplied. 

Mrs. Maurice cried over the letter and Bek 
laughed and cried and danced and sang and 
hugged and kissed everybody all around. 

Marne Dunraven looked wise over the letter 
and pinched her and said: 

“ So that’s what you’ve been getting ready for.” 

“Aunt Kebekah doesn’t know about Rutledge 
Felix,” said Bek, perplexed. 

“No, nor Cousin John doesn’t, either. It’s very 
queer about it. Bek, I had too good a time there 


46 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


not to desire to send all the girls I know. Janet 
Prentiss was there a year, too.” 

It was a wonder to Bek that she contained 
herself while the village dressmaker was busy 
about her wardrobe, and she was very sure that 
she did not contain herself but spilled all over 
when Marne Dunraven sent for a circular and 
she read for herself the list of studies that she 
might revel in. 

Mr. Maurice growled in a good-humored way 
over the sudden plan, for he loved obedient, sun- 
shiny little Bek, and he knew how her mother 
would be continually longing for her. 

“I can’t afford this thing for Lulu and the 
twins,” he declared, “ and what then ? ” 

“Oh, Bek will come home and teach them, 
said Bek’s mother hopefully. 

“Yes, she will! She’ll come home and get 
married just as every other good and bright girl 
does.” 

“That is rather hard on you men,” laughed 
his girlish wife. 

Bek happened to overhear the protest and the 
repartee. 

She tvould come home and teach the children; 
that would be one more thing to study for. She 


JOHN PRENTISS. 


47 


wondered if anybody in the world had as much 
to live for as she had. Mr. Dunraven, had, of 
course, and Mr. Prentiss, but it was the physical 
and mental needs that she ministered unto; it 
would be daring and presumption for her to hope 
to rise to anybody’s spiritual necessities. She sup- 
posed nobody ever did that excepting ministers 
and minister’s wives. 

So she went to Rutledge Felix, and oh, the 
joy of those years of study. It was like a breezy 
climb up a mountain; it was not the reaching 
the top, it was the climbing that gave zest to 
every hour. It would be a sad thing to reach 
the top if she might not climb any more. She 
climbed with winged feet. And there was always 
a top beyond. She reached one of the tops beyond 
to-night; Mr. Prentiss reached down to her a 
helping hand. 

Was that John Prentiss? The hero of her 
dreams and imaginations ! The gentleman stand- 
ing in the desk was a stranger; he must be Mr. 
Prentiss. But he was not tall, and she admired 
tall men; he was dark, not a clear dark either, 
a mass of black hair, a forehead broad and low, 
black eyes, so earnest, so grave, that she became 
quieter with every breath, his voice stirred you; 


48 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


there was something to be done in the world 
and you and he must do it. 

Bek’s heart was beating in her ears, she dis- 
tinguished no word; from his eyes a hush fell 
upon her spirit, from his voice her spirit leaped 
forth to rush into conflict. Was he speaking or 
praying? The only vacant seat was near the 
desk, they made their way to it and sat down 
in front of the speaker. It was the night of the 
usual lecture, she remembered. Mr. Evans had 
announced last week that the subject of the 
next lecture would be “Sympathy with child- 
Christians.” 

Evidently Mr. Prentiss had been speaking some 
time; there was a thrill in the audience. 

She looked up into his face and listened. 

“A little daughter twelve years old was dead. 
Jesus came into the house, took her by the hand 
and said to her: ‘Arise.’ She arose and walked 
and the Lord commanded that something should 
be given her to eat. He had done His work. 

“Now He gave the parents their something 
to do. 

“The Lord has come into your house; He has 
spoken to your twelve-year-old maiden, and she 


JOHN PRENTISS. 


49 


has heard His voice and obeyed. She has given 
herself to Him as confidingly as only children 
know how to give themselves, and now her ig- 
norant, longing heart is hungry for a knowledge 
of Him and His words. She must be fed. Some- 
thing to eat must be given to her or the child 
cannot thrive. As the flower is hungry for rain 
and sunshine, so is she hungry for the true words 
of God. Nothing else will satisfy her. Some- 
thing else may do for the worldly Christian; but 
she has received the kingdom of God as a little 
child. Is there not something to eat in His king- 
dom ? The Lord could give it to her without 
you, even as He fed the five thousand without 
you. But, oh, no. He did not feed the five thou- 
sand alone. How He loves to have helpers in 
His work of feeding. He commanded that ‘some- 
thing’ should be given this little daughter to 
eat; He did not designate what, it might be 
anything they happened to have in the house. 
Anything that is in your homes to give! Any- 
thing in the home that the child was born into. 
^ “ The little Christian has a heart ache to-night. 

To-day, at school, one of the girls made her 
‘mad,’ and she poured out a torrent of angry 
words and called her ‘names.’ Some one ‘told’ 


50 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


her in the class to-daj, just as the right answer 
was hesitating upon her tongue, and she repeated 
what she was ‘ told ’ and was marked perfect, 
her heart sinking afterward because she lacked 
the moral courage to refuse to be prompted. How 
heavy her heart is to-night ! How can she be 
one of Christ’s lambs when she is so wicked ! 
She lingers when she bids you good-night won- 
dering if grown-up people ever do such wicked 
things and stumbles through tear-blinded eyes 
upstairs to bed. Oh, how hungry she is for a 
word of comfort! But mother is finishing that 
dress for school wear and replies to her good 
night half absently: father is dozing in his arm- 
chair with a newspaper upon his knee. He 
thinks how dear and sweet she grows as he 
returns her kiss, but he has not any special word 
to say. So the poor little sinner falls asleep 
without any help from you. She may not know 
that she has missed anything. By this time she 
may have learned not to expect anything. Per- 
haps she has not missed anything; perhaps she 
clings all the closer to another Friend because 
she has no comforter on the earth. But you have 
missed something. 

“ It is Sunday evening and the little Christian 


JOHN PRENTISS. 


51 


is weaiy and unsatisfied — dissatisfied over her 
Bible reading. Her Sunday-school teacher said 
to-day that Christians love to read the Bible, that 
their love for it is one of the evidences that they 
are God’s children, that the Bible is His letter to 
every one of them. She has finished her Sunday- 
school book and half-stealthily she opens her Bible 
— no one in the room is reading the Bible and she 
doesn’t like to appear singular — the Bible is the 
small, unattractive one in fine type — and she tries 
to read. Opening at hap-hazard she reads sleepily 
and confusedly; ‘What advantage then hath the 
Jew or what profit is there of circumcision?’ She 
reads on bewildered and self-condemned because 
she doesn’t understand. Justified! What is that? 
Deeds of the law! What are deeds of the law? 
Oh, if somebody would find her a place to read 
or tell her what things meant! Sister Sue likes 
to read the Bible. She watches her as she opens 
her Sunday-school Bible and envies her absorbed 
face. She is so lost in reading that she really 
does not hear when the troubled little Christian 
bids them all good night. 

“The little Christian again is grave! An aw- 
ful responsibility rests upon her. At odd minutes 
during the last few days and in the evening half 


52 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


hoar after the lessons are learned she has been 
devouring a book lent her by one of her class-, 
mates. The classmate is a Eomanist and this 
book was given her by her mother last Christ- 
mas. I know the book; I could tell you the name 
of it. Wonderfully interesting it is. The hero 
was a Protestant, he became a Christian and used 
to make such fine prayers in prayer-meeting, and 
then, before he was grown up, he found friends 
among the Eomanists and they taught him how 
very wicked he was to be a Protestant and proved 
to him that he* would surely be lost unless he 
believed in the Holy Eoman Catholic Church and 
prayed to the Mother of God. 

“She closes the book with a sigh that is almost 
a groan, with an uncertain look about her lips she 
steals away forgetting to bid any one good night. 
Mother forgets it, too, for she is cutting a sacque 
for the baby, and father is worried about business 
and does not look up when she passes him. 
Brother John is visiting one of his mission boys 
who is ill and Sister Mary is writing a letter to 
her bosom friend. Without a word of help from 
any one the doubting little Christian falls asleep, 
not daring to say any prayer to our Father who 
art in Heaven and not knowing any prayer to 


JOHN PRENTISS. 


53 


pray to the Virgin Mary. For three nights she 
goes to bed prayerless, as far as words are prayer, 
and, then — she loves Jesus so much, in spite of the 
fascination of the story and the bewilderment of 
arguments she cannot answer, on the fourth hun- 
gry night, something triumphs, she gladly and 
restfully — oh, how gladly and restfully! — comes 
back to ‘Our Father’ and ‘Now I lay me’ and 
falls asleep a happy little Protestant again. 

“ Friends, this is not a fancy sketch. The child 
is a woman now, and gave me this bit of experience 
herself. The little Christian goes to prayer-meet- 
ing. Some of those little Christians are here to- 
night. She has listened to every word, she has 
bowed her head while prayer was being made, 
speaking her childish prayers : ‘ Make me a good 
girl, don’t let me ever be wicked any more, and 
show ne how to be good.’ 

“At the close of the meeting. Brother H. takes 
her by the hand and asks her before a group of 
girls and big boys, ‘My little sister, do you love 
the Lord?’ Poor little Christian, how can she 
speak with all those eyes staring at her! How 
her heart grows bigger and bigger until her throat 
smarts and aches! Her dry lips cannot frame the 
husky words, she draws her hand away with a 


54 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


quick gesture, a tall boy behind her titters! An- 
gry and ashamed and repentant — oh, how bitterly 
repentant! — she flies from them all, and rushes 
out into the street. She has ‘denied’ her Lord, 
she is just like Peter — no, she is worse a hundred 
times, she is just like Judas. Are such wicked 
people ever forgiven ? Her Sunday-school teacher 
says that if people do not confess Christ before men 
He will not confess them before His Father and 
the holy angels. If she might only run back and 
shout out before them all : ‘I do, I do love Him.’ 
The salt tears roll down her cheeks, but her hat 
is pressed over her eyes and nobody sees. Mother 
is talking to a neighbor about the rambling prayers 
that Brother H. makes, and Sister Jennie is telling 
her sharply not to lean against her hat, to look 
where she is stepping. 

“ Oh, the trials at home and the trials at school ! 
Oh, the sorrowful things that there is no one to 
listen to ! Oh, the crooked things that there is no 
one to make straight? Oh, the dark things that 
there is no one to explain! Oh, the question of 
right and wrong in little things that there is no 
one to help her decide! 

“Hungry little Christian! Must she wait a long 
time? God knows. No one else seems to know 


JOHN PRENTISS. 


55 


or care. She is a happy little Christian after all. 
She grows up strong and sympathetic; she loves 
the Bible a thousand times better than Dickens or 
Geoge Eliot; with a moral sense subtle and keen, 
she feels, without arguing, the right and wrong 
of every question that comes up; she can speak 
frankly now, to any friend, young or old, about 
her Master. How much she lost by early star- 
vation she can never know, but this she does 
know, how tenderly the Shepherd Himself feeds 
the hungry little lambs. But you to whom He 
gave her, bidding you give her something to eat, 
what is your excuse?” 

Bek’s heart beat fast ; through her full eyes she 
could not see his face. 

What was her excuse for not going home to 
Lulu and Nell and Floy? Were they Christians? 
How ashamed she was ! She really did not know. 
When she could listen again he was giving sug- 
gestions as to how to help the little Christians. 

“By coming out of yourself; by giving your- 
self; by giving all there is in yourself to give; 
by asking more to be given you to give.” 

Before the benediction was pronounced she had 
forgotten that she did not admire her hero. He 


56 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


came down to them instantly, and took Bek’s 
hand while he was speaking to Miss Southern- 
wood; he held it, as easily as Mr. Kutledge, the 
principal, might have done for two or three min- 
utes as he talked. And then he gave her a bright 
look and called her Bek Westerly. 

“ I knew you as you entered, before I caught a 
glimpse of Miss Southernwood. She has told me 
many things about you. You and I have known 
each other a long time. Mrs. Marston would in- 
sist that I should read all her little girl’s letters.” 

“ Did she ? And did you ? ” exclaimed Bek feel- 
ing more ashamed than she had ever felt in her 
life. 

“ Perhaps that is one reason that somebody said 
to me the other day: ‘Mr. Prentiss, I know you 
were a little girl once.’ ” 

“And if I had kept on writing somebody might 
have said that they knew you were a big girl 
once,” said Bek. 

“No,” he answered gravely, “I should not have 
read a big girl’s letters without her permission.” 

“I was a big girl,” protested Bek. 

“That was hard to believe. You recognized 
yourself more than once to-night, I know.” 

“Yes,” dropping her eyes, “I could tell Aunt 


JOHN PRENTISS. 


67 


Rebekali things because she was not real to me. 
It was like writing in a journal. It did not need 
any voice, and I can always write what I cannot 
speak.” 

“You gave yourself; it was a blessed begin- 
ning I ” 

Bek thought she never could keep on thus giv- 
ing herself. 

“ I wish you were a little girl still, for my sake. 
And then you would write to me once in a while.” 

“ I am not a little girl — still,” laughed Bek. 

Fathers and mothers came crowding up the 
aisles to speak to Mr. Prentiss. Bek and Miss 
Southernwood moved aside. 

“Well, Bek?” began Miss Southernwood as Bek 
slipped her arm through hers as tbey stepped out 
into the street. 

“ I don’t know,” said Bek, doubtfully, “ he’s dif- 
ferent from everything I supposed.” 

“How different?” 

“ I did not know there were people in the world 
like him.” 

“There are not — many. Out of a great disap- 
pointment, an overwhelming disappointment, he 
has come out sanctified. He is thoroughly con- 
secrated. For years he had one aim, he worked 


68 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


for it night and day and when the way was open 
he was jubilant in his triumph. But his eyes 
failed, he became almost blind, he could not study 
and work in Syria and he has come home and 
settled down to his old work in a little parish a 
hundred miles from here. But it almost broke his 
heart.” 

“ I noticed his eyes. I thought they were 
lovely.” 

“They are. But he cannot write a sermon yet.” 

“ That is since Aunt Kebekah died, while I have 
been at Kutledge Felix. I knew Mr. Dunraven 
had a nephew in Syria. I have wanted to know 
all about Mr. Prentiss, but I did not like to ask ” 

“All about him nobody knows. He wrote to 
me from Syria: ‘Pray hard that 1 may not have 
to come back.’ We did pray hard, Janet and 1. 
He is satisfied now just as hard. He says he does 
not even want to know why he had to come back ; 
he is just as satisfied as if he knew. He loves 
God and doesn’t ask questions. He was interested 
in girls out there.” 

It was all in the kingdom here and there, Bek 
was thinking; it would be all in the kingdom, Kut- 
ledge Felix or Clovernook. 


III. 

THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING. 

“ Act upon your impulses, but pray that they may be directed 
by God.” — ^Emerson Tennent. 

But where her niche was at home was hard to dis- 
cover; Lnlu and Chip, Nell and Floy had done 
without her so long that they did liot seem to 
claim her ; Pauline, an efficient middle-aged wom- 
an held energetic sway in the kitchen ; and Mrs. 
Payson, a merry-faced widow, presided in her mo- 
ther’s chamber and was engaged to take care of 
the new baby until he should be three months’ old. 
She had kissed the baby and heartily approved of 
his name, Bertram, petted her mother to both their 
hearts’ content, she had given the children their 
presents and found out where they were all study- 
ing, she had told Pauline she was a jewel and 
she hoped she would never die or get married, 
she had written letters for her step-father, and 
now what was there to do up stairs or down? 


60 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


Her mother’s heart rested in her, she felt that; 
but she was bursting for something to do. Was 
it possible that the something to do was to go 
back to Eutledge Felix ? To go back to her own 
cosy room, to the long, busy school-room and 
Miss Southernwood every day and every night. 
And to have years of Mollie in her married home ? 
Mollie’s new home was to be that handsome house 
opposite the gates of Rutledge Felix. Just the 
work she craved most and just the pleasure she 
most delighted in. 

She had been at home a full month before she 
dared speak to her mother about teaching at Rut- 
ledge Felix, and then she did not dare, she only 
thought she dared. 

“Bek, are you busy, child?” 

Bek was sitting at the open window in her 
own chamber writing to Miss Southernwood when 
her mother came into the room and stood beside 
her. A frail little lady in a white wrapper with 
dark eyes and burnished chestnut hair; Bek’s 
daintiness was no secret after you had seen her 
mother. 

“ Only finishing my letter to Miss Southernwood,” 
Bek replied throwing her head back against her 
mother. 


THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING. 


61 


Bek’s mother was eighteen years older than 
her eldest daughter, and as light of foot and 
light of heart as the girl herself. 

She was a widow with a little daughter and 
engaged to be married the second time when 
she was Bek’s age; and yet, at twenty-one Bek 
seemed to her such a child, altogether too young 
and childish to be thinking of marriage for the*>#-^ 
first time. But Bek was not thinking of it; she 
was only thinking how she could get back to 
Kutledge Felix before the term opened. 

“Is she at Rutledge Felix?” 

“No; don’t you know? I told you she is spend- 
ing vacation with Mr. Prentiss and his sister?” 

“ Where?” 

“ Sunny Plains.” 

“Oh, I remember. He spent his vacation here 
and preached for us. Bekie, daughter, what 
would mother do without you,” she said in a 
changed tone, bending to lay her. cheek on Bek’s 
hair. This was a new caress; of old she had been 
wont to be chary with caresses. Of old she had 
been several things that she was not now. Was 
it baby’s advent that had changed her so ? There 
was a flutter in the eyes that Bek looked up into; 
there was a flutter in the voice. 


62 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


“ Bek, you are my own youth come back to me. 
I have felt so old without you. You are yom 
father to me and all that other life. I have lived 
two lives and I think I have been two people. 
I want to keep you as long as I stay. Bek, don’t 
you ever go away from me, will you?” 

“Does father want to keep me, too?” she asked 
with a break in her voice. 

“How can you ask? Does he make any dif- 
ference between you and Lulu? We were plan- 
ning last night how you are to teach the girls; he 
can only send them for one year to Eutledge Felix 
and there will be need of no more if you prepare 
them for that. Now I have you, I can never let 
you go!” 

“ Never,” laughed Bek, consciously. 

“When a man like your own father asks you 
to help him, I will let you go to the ends of the 
earth. Somehow I keep hoping that you will be 
let to do the work that was taken from me. I 
know I wasn’t fit.” 

“ How do you know ? ” ^ 

“Because it was taken away from me.” 

“So was Mr. Prentiss’ work in Syria. I don’t 
think that proves anything. It only proves that 
you had to do something else.” 


THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING. 


63 


All Bek’s idea of life just now was to “do” 
something. Her mother would have told you 
that her idea of life was to suffer something. 
Only three hours ago her physician had assured 
her that an internal trouble was eating her life 
away; she might live one year or two, the keep- 
ing up her strength depended upon nourishment 
and freedom from anxious care. When Bek 
looked up into her mother’s eyes she read only 
love for herself and solicitude. When Bek’s 
mother was a little girl people called her “brave.” 
When she was a little girl and her father and 
mother had been taken away within two months 
of each other she had read the words of the Lord: 
“ Be thou brave and very courageous.” She had 
read them again when at sixteen her twin sister 
had died. And afterward when her heart almost 
broke she had tried to be brave. And now, was 
it possible that this was hardest of all — she must 
go away before very long and leave the four girls, 
and Chip, and the dear, new baby? A second 
later, she remembered her husband, but she had 
thought of the children first. 

“Is there anything you want to do, Bek?” 

“ I did want to go back to Kutledge Felix to 
teach.” The words slipped out. While her mo- 


64 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


ther was asking the question she had resolved 
never to speak of Kutledge Felix. And yet it 
was so hard not to have spending money and 
not to know just how her wardrobe was to be made 
new. Her gloves were shabby now and some of 
her ribbons were creased and faded and — she did 
not like to speak of money to her mother, and 
she would rather go without things forever than 
to ask her father for a single cent. 

“What for? Aren’t you happy at home?” 

“ Oh, yes,” cried Bek, in a choked voice, “ it 
isn’t that.” 

“Then what is it?” 

“Oh, nothing,” she evaded, trying to laugh. 

“ Bek, yoti mustn’t leave me ! I must keep hold 
of you,” her mother exclaimed in a tone of real 
distress. 

“I won’t go, mother. I’ll stay with you,” she 
comforted instantly. 

“ I’ll write to Mr. Kutledge to-night that I have 
a louder call at home.” 

“Had it gone so far as that? You will not be 
sorry when you remember it some day. But I 
came to tell you that Dr. Prentiss is here to tea.” 

“To tea? Why nobody is sick and Dr. Mason 
comes to see you.” 


THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING. 


65 


“Your father has a way of expressing his ad- 
miration for him by often asking him to tea. We 
like him because he is Mr. Dunraven’s nephew 
and some people say he is engaged to his cousin, 
Marne Dunraven. But that is because he boards 
at the Parsonage.” 

“ He isn’t like his cousin, my Mr. Prentiss, one 
bit. Mamma, I don’t like him. He makes me 
shiver.” 

“ I do not admire him, but he is a stranger and 
we must be kind to him. Dr. Mason laughs and 
says that he is such a favorite around the country 
that he must begin to look out for himself” 

“I don’t like him,” declared Bek, energetically, 
“ he is so handsome that I can’t find any expression 
in his face. And it only changes from sullen to 
bright and bright to sullen, and he has a voice 
without any purpose in it. He is only energetic 
when he is angry and he hasn’t principle enough 
to keep angry five minutes.” 

Mrs. Maurice looked surprised. “You have 
studied him to some purpose.” 

“ I’ve seen him at the Parsonage. He knows 1 
don’t like him and his vanity is touched and he’s 
determined that I shall like him. He came into 
choir-meeting last time: Gertrude likes his voice. 


66 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


The trouble is, mother, there isn’t enough of him.” 
Then thinking of his cousin, she added, “ It 
would never overwhelm him to give up living a 
life of self-denial.” 

“Don't be harsh in your young judgments, dear. 
Come down and talk to him.” 

“I’m stupid to-day, mamma.” 

“Then play. You are never too stupid to be 
enthusiastic about music.” 

“He is such a book of quotations that he 
makes me indignant. He isn’t fair, either. He 
leaves out the quotation marks.” 

“No matter, talk to him or listen to him. 
Papa has a new business worry and looks grave. 
Stock has gone down in that silver mine out 
west; that is his latest craze, and he’s terribly 
disappointed.” 

“ I’m so sorry,” Bek said sympathetically. 

But “a new business worry” was an every-day 
story. 

She scribbled, “ Yours lovingly ” at the end 
of her sheet, set her writing desk on the window 
sill and rising went to the long glass in her 
handsome dressing bureau to see if she were in 
order to appear before Dr. Prentiss’ critical eyes. 
Her mother stood behind her surveying the reflec- 


THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING. 


67 


tion with more pride than her smile revealed. How 
conld the dark, round face, so eager, so sweet, so 
wise and so innocent, but be lovely in the mother’s 
eyes ! 

The fly-away hair was brushed a little smoother, 
a wrinkle smoothed in the crimson ribbon at her 
throat, and then the navy blue figure fiitted down 
the stairway — somewhat curious to meet the 
stranger again. 

Every word that people spoke, every breath 
they drew was of interest to Bek. One thing Miss 
Southernwood had taught her, to live a life outside 
of herself 

“ My daughter Eebekah,” her father introduced, 
not being aware that she had met Dr. Prentiss. 

Mr. Maurice always ignored the “Westerly” in 
her name. 

“ My daughter Eebekah isn’t to be talked non- 
sense to,” mentally concluded Dr. Julius Prentiss. 

With instinctive recoil she met the stranger’s 
eyes, handsome, unwavering black eyes they were, 
but she did not trust them. In this thing, among 
some others, she believed in herself; she never 
fully trusted one for whom her first instinct was 
dislike. Three years she had tried, unsuccessfully, 
to like Miss Aiken. She did not love easily 


68 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


It was more than dislike in this instance; she 
shivered and shrank from him. With this feeling 
against him, and the disappointment about Kut- 
ledge Felix tugging sorely at her heart she became 
silent and self-absorbed. 

“Excuse me, please,” she said, rising from the 
tea-table while Dr. Prentiss was still busy with 
his raspberries. 

He lifted his eyes protestingly ; she colored 
and frowned. 

“We must have some music, Bekie,” Mr. 
Maurice, interposed. 

“ I’m not in a musical mood to-night,” she 
answered easily. 

Mrs. Maurice looked annoyed and endeavored 
to recall her with her eyes. Dr. Prentiss was 
undeniably provoked and would not finish his 
raspberries. He showed his annoyance almost 
as a big boy would have done; Bek laughed all 
to herself and forgot his existence for the next 
two busy weeks. The home school had been 
organized and lessons begun with encouraging 
zest. 

One morning, as she was giving her second 
music lesson in the back parlor, Pauline came 
to the door and announced Dr., Prentiss. 


THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING. 


69 


“ I kept him waiting in the hall until I knew 
if you were willing to see him.” 

“ Did you say that father is away ? ” she asked. 

“Yes, and that you were engaged.” 

“That was rude, Pauline.” 

“He asked for you, and I said you had scliool 
every morning.” 

“ Bring him in. I’ll be through in one moment.” 

Pauline went away with a little grunt. Pauline 
was a farmer’s daughter; when her father died, 
years ago, she gave her small share of the 
patrimony to her invalid elder sister and went out 
to service at the Parsonage. She was ardently 
attached to her minister and had loved Bek ever 
since for her father’s sake. To her Bek would 
never be anything but her minister’s little 
daughter. When Bek’s mother married again 
she came to her begging for a home with her, 
“for Bekie’s sake” — a faithful servant and good 
friend she had been ever since. 

Nell ran her fingers along the keys and laughed 
— wishing Dr. Prentiss would come every music 
morning. 

Bek lingered as long as she could and then 
stepped through the two darkened rooms with 
no welcome in her greeting. With an eagerness 


70 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


that was not concealed he came forward to meet 
her; Bek’s bow, she did not extend her hand, 
was even more dignified and stately than usual. 

In her dreaming uneventful life at boarding- 
school, her ideal, — handsome, brave, honorable 
and good — had flitted across her vision, coloring 
some of the dark days, giving poetry to some 
of the hard prose; perhaps there was a little 
weakness, a fascinating sort of weakness some- 
where, for this hero who was coming into her 
life was some one whom she must “help,” some 
one that would depend upon her, some one to 
whom she might be a spiritual blessing. In 
some things, therefore. Dr. Prentiss, was not 
unlike her ideal ; she began to feel that he 
might have need of her. 

To give, not to take, was all her dream, in 
these days. Afterward — in the early afterward — 
she called this year of her knowledge of him a 
lost year; in the late afterward she knew that 
it was not a lost year. When God gave her this 
year He knew what she would make of it; He 
knew what He would make of it for her. How hap- 
py God must be in His fore-knowledge! How 
happy we may be in His fore-knowledge I 

Seating herself in a sofa corner she began to 


THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING, 


71 


talk to him concerning thoughts and things that 
came uppermost. Julius Prentiss was a talker, 
she loved talkers; he was hardly a conversation- 
alist, she thought conversationalists a bore. 1 
fear that she would not have appreciated Cole- 
ridge. Perhaps because she was such a rapid 
little talker herself. 

As he watched her eyes and mouth he was 
perfectly aware that she shrank from him; he 
was determined to make her confess it, some day, 
at the same time that she confessed that she had 
more than overcome it. Life was monotonous 
in Clovernook; this little golden-headed thing 
with her bright, quick motions, her sweet voice 
and unexpected ways and words was altogether 
more amusing than chronic nervous diseases, or 
rheumatic fever. 

Observing him as he ran on in easy talk, and 
listening, raising her interested eyes now and 
then from the crocheting she had taken from 
her pocket, she decided that he must be as hand- 
some as Hawthorne or Goethe — excepting his 
mouth, the lines of his lips were weak, and his 
chin, upon close inspection, was not intellectual. 
As he talked about his home, his old father and 
mother, and his cousins, John and Janet, her 


72 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


eyes grew warmer; when he gave her the story 
of his student life, the work was quiet in her 
fingers; with his very frank air he seemed re- 
vealing to her all his life. 

Mark Eyerson, his most patient and attached 
friend — excepting always his cousin Janet, — said 
of him once, 

“ When Julius confesses that he has stolen 
twenty-five cents, you love him better for his pen- 
itence, and begin to hope in him, until you learn 
that it was a dollar he had stolen.” 

He said this to Janet; Janet accused him of 
injustice and clung to Julius the more firmly. 
How could she help it? Had she not loved him 
all her life ? Had she not covered his transgres- 
sions and mingled her tears of penitence with 
his when they were children together? As far 
as she could know them she had repented of 
every one of his sins. She thought she knew 
them all; but Mark Eyerson knew that her knowl- 
edge of them bore to the truth the relation of 
twenty-five cents to a dollar. 

His “ wuldness ” was one of his most touching 
themes, especially in talking to sympathetic wom- 
en ; Bek listened to several stories of sin and pun- 
ishment and penitence with tears very near her 


THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING. 


73 


eyes. Ashamed of herself for beginning to be- 
lieve in him against the instinctive protest, she 
chided herself for being hasty in her ill judgment. 

“You may not believe it,” he said at last, “but 
this is the seventh place I’ve tried to settle in. 
I’m just out of hospital life. It isn’t the kind 
of life to make one fastidious. To confess the 
whole truth, I was — unsteady at one time. I 
was in with a wild set, but I broke away from 
them by a determined force of will and now I’d 
as soon swallow a coal of fire as a glass of 
whiskey.” 

Bek’s eyes kindled. “ Oh, I’m so glad.” 

“You won’t give me up then without seeing 
what I’m made of.” 

“No,” she said impulsively. 

“I’m the kind of a fellow that needs a girl 
friend — a woman friend; men, some men, are too 
rough for my taste.” 

The work was moving in her fingers again; how 
hot the color was in her cheeks! He arose and 
stood watching the motions of her fingers. 

“ May I drop in again soon ? ” he asked coaxing- 
ly. “It isn’t awfully jolly at my uncle’s. Marne 
is always full of something that I don’t take any 
interest in.” 


7i 


BEK\S FIRST CORNER. 


“We usually send for tlie doctor,” Bek could 
not forbear replying with her naughty little laugh. 

“ I’m not the doctor — to you.” 

Bek wondered if he were anything to her. 

He knew how to be very much in earnest, this 
man whose principle was all impulse; he knew 
how to give reverent and silent admiration with 
his eyes. 

Bek had never felt admired before. He lingered 
and lingered, loitering about the parlors like a priv- 
ileged, inquisitive child, standing before a picture 
for awhile, then wheeling around to talk, then stop- 
ping before the bookcase he ran over the titles 
of the books aloud in an entertaining and en- 
tertained tone. 

“ I can’t pass through a room and after a glance 
at the bookcase give the names of the books as 
they stand as some one I read of taught himself 
to do. Bat I may come to it yet. I am teaching 
myself to observe. It will be of rare service to 
me. This is a goodly collection. It is something 
to find outside of a professional man’s house. 
Who are the readers in this house, pray ? ” 

“Mother reads very well and father manages 
to without much spelling,” she answered seriously. 

“You are bound to be hard on me: I won’t stay 


THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING. 


75 


any longer. I know I’m encroaching on your 
school hours and I have the lasting gratitude of 
your pupils. I’ll go and see those old ladies under 
the hill who do all their farm work; one of them 
sprained her ankle in the barnyard. I told her 
it was because she had no right to be there. Miss 
Bek,” coming and standing before her, “I’m a 
poor man.” 

“I never should have guessed it.” 

“Is the fact so apparent?” glancing down at 
his shabby vest. “John and Janet were born 
with gold spoons in their mouths, but mine was 
not even silver plated. My father has not been 
strong all his life and now he and mother scrape 
along on a few acres and in an old house. And 
I’m no help to them. I’ve not seen them for ten 
years.” 

“Oh, how cruel!” exclaimed Bek. 

“It is cruel,” he admitted in a pained tone. 
“ I’ve had to scrape along, too. I’m scraping 
along now.” 

“It is hardly fastidious in you to tell me so 
much about yourself,” Bek returned, displeased. 

“1 tell you so that you won’t find it out for 
yourself. Janet keeps mother informed of my do- 
ings and undoings — I don’t know what they would 


76 


BEK’S FIRST CORNER. 


do without Janet. You see I want you to know 
the worst of me,” he added in his frankest tone. 

“ As we are not in Boston, I shall not ask how 
much you know,” she answered speaking lightly, 
but with moved eyes; “nor in New York, so I 
shall not inquire how much money you have; nor 
in Philadelphia, so I shall not presume to discover 
who your grandfather was: but as we are in se- 
cluded Clovernook where the question is — ” 

She flushed and hesitated. 

“What?” he asked expectantly. 

Her eyes moistened, her lips moved with words 
which she did not speak, then she answered very 
gravely : 

“ I think they ask if you are a member of the 
church ? ” 

“And can you reply in the affirmative?” he 
questioned. 

“Yes.” 

“I’ve had some ten or twelve years longer to 
think about it than you have; but I have not been 
thinking to very good purpose, it seems. Perhaps 
that is one of the reasons I was moved to come to 
Clovernook.” 

“I hope it is,” she said very earnestly. 

“My uncle never lets me rest. I had an idea 


THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING. 


77 


that you were the kind that would want to talk 
to me about my soul.” 

“Never fear,” she replied, reassuringly, “I never 
talk to people about anything they are not pos- 
sessed of.” 

“ Now 1 go,” he laughed, turning the door- 
knob in his hand. 

She arose with an air of dismissal. During all 
the interview she had not detained him by word 
or look. His vanity was keenly wounded; he felt 
that he had lost the slight advantage that he 
thought he had gained. 

“ I think I have some books that you have not,” 
he said, speaking uneasily, “if you will kindly 
allow me — do you read Thackeray? You would 
surely enjoy Miss Thackeray; she is one of my 
cousin Janet’s favorites.” 

“My time is so full, thank you, and we have 
the papers and magazines — father is a great 
reader! You are very thoughtful,” she added 
relentingly. 

He bade her good morning with some embar 
rassment and hastened away. She stood a mo- 
ment on the threshold of the parlor door, her 
hands dropped at her side, a perplexed smile in 
her eyes. 


78 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


“ Oh, dear, I’d better go back to school ! ” she 
was thinking. “ I knew I wasn’t grown up 
enough to be like other girls. How Mollie would 
have kept him laughing, and Gertrude would have 
sent him away with some kind of a new inspira- 
tion after something, and I have only been rude 
and offended him.” 

There was a light step on the stairs, and she 
caught a glimpse of a pink cambric wrapper. 

“Oh, mamma,” she cried half-comically, half- 
pathetically. “ I don’t know how to entertain one 
bit.” 

“It is a pity,” smiled Mrs. Maurice. 

“ And a recitation is lost. I’ll tell Pauline that 
I can’t see any one in the morning again.” 

“ 0, Bek,” called Floy from the top of the stairs, 
“the Chinese put salt and ginger in their tea. 
Come and hear about it.” 

Before a week had passed Dr. Prentiss called 
again, this time in the afternoon, the next time 
he called in the evening, and after that not a 
week passed, all through the summer and winter, 
that he did not call more than once. 

Bek did not know how it was ; it may be that 
he did not know how it was himself. Lulu had 
an attack of malaria in the fall, he happened to 


THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING. 


79 


prescribe for her and then gradually she fell un- 
der his medical supervision ; the twins had scarlet 
fever in the winter, and he visited them every 
day for two weeks; and, at last, towards spring, 
Bek, who had never had an illness in her life, 
must needs take cold on a sleigh ride and have 
a serious attack of bronchitis. And so it came to 
pass, without any apparent-planning or seeming 
forethought, that these two people were thrown 
together. If she were glad to talk to him, play 
for him and read aloud to him at home, she could 
not refuse to drive with him : she accepted flowers 
and books that he brought her, and new music, 
and before she was aware — long before she was 
aware — the shrinking and recoil were forgotten, 
and, somehow — she never knew how — she was 
drawn to him. She had learned to care very much 
for his presence and companionship. One evening 
while waiting for him to come she learned how 
disappointed she would be if he did not come 
— if he never came again. I think she forgot to 
ask if God had chosen this companionship for 
her. This new friend was not with her in the 
kingdom on the earth. 

Once he spoke of himself as “the natural man” 
and she did not shrink from him. ‘ Oh, the old 


80 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER, 


story of trying to be a blessing to him ! — he said 
that she was leading him into the kingdom that 
she lived in and she believed him. I think that 
he believed it himself. How she thought she 
would choke to death the night that the minis- 
ter said so sternly to her mother, with a glance 
towards her, “ I fear that Julius is an unbe- 
liever.” Was he warning her against him ? Her 
mother was very quiet all the next day, and 
looked startled when she ran into the nursery 
to bid her good-bye before going on a long 
drive with Dr. Prentiss. 

After that how she prayed for him night and 
day ! She wrote him a long letter, she could not 
trust herself to talk to him, every sentence was 
born of prayer and tears. 


IT. 

“THAT NIGHT.” 

“We will obey tbe voice of the Lord our God that it may 
be well with us.” 

She believed him, she believed that he fully 
meant every word when he promised her that 
he would begin to pray and read the Bible and 
try to find out if these things were so. But she 
did not believe in him. She was not at all sure 
that he had not promised simply to make her 
happy. She was not metaphysical, and I sus- 
pect that you and I are glad that she was not; she 
could not reason anything about the position that 
she found herself in. She held out her hand to 
God, he kept it in His, and led her along her 
hard way. She never knew whether or not this 
part of her life were a mistake; she called it a 
mistake, but I think God has another name for 
such weaknesses — it was a weakness that was the 


82 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


outgrowth of so much that was strong and pure 
and lovely. 

Kecently I read this charge against story- 
writers: “What do they teach? Do they teach 
girls how to act in like circumstances ? ” You 
may never be allowed to place yourself in a po- 
sition exactly like Bek’s, but if your life is not 
in many things akin to hers, then it is not like 
the girls’ lives I see around me; it is not like 
the girl’s life I myself have lived. 

For a long time she was bewildered and fright- 
ened with the suddenness and the sureness of the 
knowledge that forced itself upon her; she could 
not adapt herself to it; it was contrary to every- 
thing that she had hitherto found in herself — 
that she could love a man like Dr. Prentiss. She 
had longed to be a “ help ” and a “ blessing,” but 
no — oh, no, not to an “ unbeliever ” ! If he would 
not come into the kingdom with her, must she 
go outside to him? 

During this bewilderment she scarcely opened 
a book; she taught the children, mechanically; 
she was in no mood to speak to any one; but 
it was a busy time nevertheless. The physical 
strain was great, so great, that Dr. Prentiss, not 
understanding it at all, advised a tonic. 


'^THAT night: 


83 


“ You need a change,” he said, holding her fin- 
gers in his, “but I am too selfish to ad rise 
that.” 

That afternoon she called upon Gertrude Ray- 
mond; if she dared tell Gertrude, perhaps Gertrude 
might help her. Gertrude gave such thoughtful 
answers in Bible-class, and Mr. Dunraven had 
once said that Gertrude Raymond was a won- 
derful Bible student. Bek’s fancy-work was in 
her pocket, she drew it out as they sat over 
the wood fire in the parlor and talked. How 
they talked and laughed over school reminis- 
cences, and village news! 

“Girls are happy creatures,” said grandfather 
in the sitting-room as the sound of light laughter 
came to him. 

But his old eyes were too dim to discern the 
anxiety in Bek’s eyes or the trouble that now and 
then flitted across Gertrude’s fair face. 

Gertrude could never confess her trouble, she 
was climbing — being burdened also, for she loved 
Dr. Prentiss and had faith in him; during a long 
illness of her mother’s he had called profession- 
ally every day, and every day had given a special 
half hour to Gertrude. But his attention to her 
had ceased with his calls upon her mother, and 


84 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


she knew that she had given her love to one 
who had not in sincerity sought it. Keport had 
given him to Bek Westerly, but she would not 
believe it ; this afternoon Bek made no allusion to 
him and she was too proud and self-suppressed to 
speak his name. 

As twilight gathered Bek was persuaded to 
remain to tea, perhaps Gertrude would walk part 
of the way home with her and then she might ask 
her — ‘what? After all, what question was there 
to ask ? Miss Southernwood — but Miss Southern- 
wood would not look upon it from her stand- 
point as Gertrude would do. 

“Come out into the sitting-room while I set 
the tea-table,” said Gertrude, “mother is upstairs 
with a headache, but grandfather is there.” 

The homely pleasant sitting-room, with, the fire 
in the Franklin, the plants in the window, and 
grandfather in his arm-chair, was a heart’s-ease 
in itself. Bek almost wished that she lived in 
Gertrude’s home and never had a heart-ache — 
like Gertrude. 

“ ‘ And that night they caught nothing.’ ” 

Grandfather had a fashion of reading halt 
aloud. He was sitting close to the window 
to catch all the light that was breaking through 


^^THAT NIGHT. 


85 


the gray, September sky. He repeated dream- 
ily: “And that night they canght nothing.” 

The words were in harmony with Bek’s mood, 
for, had not she, like the disciples, toiled all 
night and taken nothing? She was lost in the 
depths of a chintz-covered “barrel chair” and 
her eyes were on her quick moving fingers as 
the crochet needle played in and out among the 
scarlet loops of Bertie’s sack, but her heart was 
with the words grandfather was reading from 
the big book upon his knees. The type was 
large. Sitting beside him, as she raised her eyes 
now and then, she could follow the record easily. 
Bek loved to pray. It was as easy as to breathe. 
But she did not love to help make the answer; that 
was not as easy as to breathe ; it was as hard as 
hard work. With the praying must come effort, the 
effort of spoken or written words, the effort of 
using our best wisdom in planning and effect- 
ing, the mighty effort of loving . with the love 
that suffers long and is kind; and who would 
not rather run and tell the Lord Jesus that we 
have a sore heart for a friend and beg Him to 
do all that is fitting to be done, than to do these 
hard things ourselves? But she could not pray 
without working, and how faithfully she had 


86 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


done both all this past year! Were the dis- 
ciples discouraged after their one disappointing 
night as she was after her long night of praying 
and hoping and working? 

Through the open door into the kitchen she 
saw Gertrude moving about in her green cash- 
mere and ruffled white apron; how pretty the 
soft color in her cheeks was and how much 
character was expressed in every step and mo- 
tion! She would never find herself in such a 
strait as hers! She had so much character and 
decision, and always knew what to do next ! 
She would never have permitted an unsatisfying 
friendship to glide into more unsatisfying love. 

“I’m such a weak, crooked, little, purposeless 
thing,” sighed Bek. 

Gertrude sang softly while she cut bread, 
opened a can of blackberries, chipped the dried 
beef and arranged the pretty, old-fashioned china. 

“This cup and saucer is an heirloom,” she ex- 
claimed, bringing a deep saucer and small, round 
cup to Bek. “It has a history. This summer, 
while I was on the coast of Maine among mo- 
ther’s relatives, one rainy day 1 went up into 
the garret to hunt up things to bring home, and 
I found an old will in a chest and copied it for 


**TffAT night: 


87 


mother. The will was made by; mother’s grand- 
mother’s mother, and in it she willed a set of 
ware to which this belongs to mother when she 
was a little girl. This is all that is left; mother 
never cared for it and she’s given this to me. 
I gave Dr.' Prentiss a cup of tea from it one 
night and he said ever so many funny things 
about it. Now you shall have it to-night. It’s 
one hundred and fifty years old ! ” 

“ I shan’t think of anything funny to say,” 
replied Bek, examining the saucer. 

“ He says them without thinking,” said Ger- 
trude. “ Which kind of jelly will you have, cur- 
rant, quince, grape or apple? that’s all I made 
this summer.” 

“I should think that was enough. Pauline 
wanted me to learn and I wouldn’t. I give six 
music lessons a week beside having other stu- 
dies. I wish I did have more to do, though.” 

“ So do I,” responded Gertrude, energetically. 
“ I am wondering what new thing I shall do this 
winter to fill my mind up. I’ll give you the 
grape, that’s on a lower shelf.” 

. Bek laughed and took up her work again. 

Gertrude went after the grape jelly and Bek’s 
eyes wandered to grandfather’s book. 


88 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


“Children, have ye any meat? They answered 
him: No.” 

Their night was ended; because morning had 
come and the Lord stood upon the shore. He 
knew how hard they had worked all night; He 
knew they had caught nothing. They were not 
fishers of men now, they were only catching fish 
to eat and to sell, for themselves, their wives and 
their children, and perhaps to cast a mite into 
the treasury. Peter and John could not plead 
that it was all for Him, as they could have done 
afterward, when they went up to the temple to- 
gether at the hour of prayer and found the lariie 
man at the Beautiful gate. This toiling all night 
was for Him, only as everything is for Him, but 
it was for themselves as well. The thought came 
to her that this was not what people call “ spirit- 
ual” work. Perhaps hers was not either, in its 
fullest sense ; perhaps she would not have prayed 
as zealously if Dr. Prentiss were some one else’s 
friend, Gertrude’s for instance, or if she knew that 
he was engaged to be married to that cousin Janet 
that he used to like to talk about. And, foolish 
child, as she was, she had been almost jealous of 
that cousin Janet. 

The Lord came to them, and their work was 


THAT night: 


89 


not “ spiritual,” her heart should no longer be rent, 
her tears should no longer fall in scalding drops 
because human love and sympathy were mixed 
in with her beseeching prayers. The Lord found 
no fault with them, not one word, because of the 
toiling, fruitless night. He told them where to 
cast the net and promised they should find. Oh, 
if morning would only come and she could see the 
Lord and He would not rebuke her, but recognize 
all her urgent praying as He recognized their 
work: “Have ye any meat?” He asked. 

She drew nearer grandfather’s shoulder and read 
the question. 

If He should ask her: “Have ye any answer 
to your prayer?” she would be compelled to an- 
swer, “No.” 

But how soon they were rewarded ! One obed- 
ient moment was more fruitful than a long night 
of toil. How full the net was as they drew it in ! 
Oh,.jf she might have one obedient moment! But 
was it all disobedience? IMust she not give her- 
self to this new friend while he vilfully stayed 
outside the kingdom? 

The promise was if they obeyed; they had to 
cast the net where He commanded before they 
could find. Could she be obedient and marry 


90 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER, 


Dr. Prentiss? Did not his uncle, her dear old 
pastor, mean something when he gave her that 
warning look? 

“ Now, good people, come to tea,” Gertrude was 
saying, cheerily, “and mother is coming down 
to see you, Bek; she says you will cure her 
headache.” 

The tea-table was a relief; Gertrude’s housekeep- 
ing was perfection; it was a relief to lose the con- 
sciousness of herself in the delicious bread and 
to talk to Mrs. Raymond about bread-making 
and give her some of Pauline’s experiences ; the 
blackberries and the grape jelly were suggestive 
of so many things that Mrs. Raymond liked to 
talk about that the nervous headache was speedily 
forgotten, and then Bek had the latest news from 
the Parsonage; she knew how many jars of every- 
thing Marne Dunraven had “put up,” and. just the 
colors Mrs. Dunraven had harmonized or con- 
trasted in the latest block of her silk quilt, and 
she could relate the last incident of church work 
that Mr. Dunraven had brought from the fall Pres- 
bytery; she was not so clear about the doings of 
the “missionary that came near bemg blind,” but 
she had Miss Southernwood’s vacation letters to 
quote from and was surprised that she was so 


^^THAT night:' 


91 


much at home in the details of the life at the 
Sunny Plains Parsonage. 

“Pm real glad you came, Bek,” the old lady 
said, when Bek shook hands with her. “Gertrude 
mopes sometimes — she doesn’t go out half enough 
— and you have chirked her up.” 

The girls sauntered down to the gate with 
linked arms; Bek had no question to ask, grand- 
father’s book had answered her question ; Gertrude 
was talking rapidly about some new fancy-work 
she intended to introduce at the next meeting 
of the Foreign Mission Band. “The missionary 
that came near being blind” had organized the 
band on his last visit to Clovernook, the girls 
were to have a fair at Christmas, the proceeds 
of which were to be sent to his old field, in 
Syria. Bek had been chosen president; she liked 
to think that she was doing something for Mr. 
Prentiss, her old friend, as well as for Syria. 

The sound of wheels grazed the grassy walk 
outside the gate; both girls looked up to bow 
to Dr. Prentiss. “Pve been forgetting your mo- 
ther, lately. Miss Gertrude,” he said. “ Pll run in 
a minute. Miss Bek, let me take you home.” 

“Thanks, I don’t want to lose my walk,” she 
returned seriously. 


92 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


As he looked down into her eyes, with his 
intent gaze, it was very hard to believe that 
trying to be a blessing to him was disobedience. 
But she must decide ; she must knoiv if she were 
disobedient. She cared to be obedient more than 
she cared for him. 

Dr. Prentiss gave a short, disappointed laugh 
as he leaped to the ground; Gertrude’s face was 
radiant. 

Bek went on without turning to look back; 
she had enough to think about. 


V. 

THE SEOEET IN AN OLD BOOK. 

“No man was ever so much deceived by another as by 
himself.” — Loed Geevuile. 

A WEEK afterward, one afternoon, she came down- 
stairs dressed for a drive ; her eyes were something 
to see; her own life seemed wondronsly beautiful 
to-day, she was doing such happy and precious 
work; Dr. Prentiss was really changed^ he assured 
her that he had never felt such an exhilaration 
in his life. 

“I feel so free — as if I were treading on air.” 

Bek never questioned the wherefore. Was 
not his joy the same as her own? Had he not 
missed a call that he might attend church last 
Sabbath evening? Was there not a reverent 
look in his eyes while Mr. Dunraven was speaking ? 
Oh, Bek ! poor Bek ! poor little Bek, don’t comfort 
yourself so ! He is free and as light as air because 
his cousin Janet has released him from their five- 


94 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


years’ engagement and he has told her that it is be- 
cause he wants to marry you ; in his present mood 
he could go to church all day long for your sake, 
and the look in his eyes came from thinking of 
you; he did not hear one word the minister said. 
But how could you know this? You believed 
him when he told you that he was not the 
same man that he was before that morning 
call that interrupted your music lesson. You 
believe him when he tells you that you are his 
good angel: you believe, with a perplexed frown 
and a doubt at your heart, when he finds it in 
the Bible that the unbelieving husband is sanc- 
tified by the wife. Has he misquoted? No; 
she looks and reads with her own troubled eyes. 
But does it mean tliai? He rapturously assures 
her that it means just that and she promises — 
oh, how her heart beats when she promises — 
that she will think of it and decide. “When 
a woman deliberates, she is lost,” he quotes 
with an exultant laugh. 

But she does not even smile. Must she go 
outside the kingdom to him? He has written 
to her since again and again, and his letters 
seem almost — she did not dare think “inspired,” 
but she felt it. 


THE SECRET IN AN OLD BOOK. 


95 


With one of these “inspired” letters in her 
pocket she was running down the stairway this 
afternoon. 

“ How the child 1 lossoms and blooms I ” her 
mother thought to herself as she opened the 
front parlor door and met her in the hall. 

“ Whither now, Bekie ? ” she said aloud. 

“Anywhere and everywhere,” Bek cried airily. 
“ Dr. Prentiss has a call to make four miles 
away, and I am going with him.” 

The radiant face clouded at the changed ex- 
pression of her mother’s face. 

“ Why, mother, don’t you like to have me drive 
with him?” she asked in sheer surprise. “You 
haven’t said one word against it all this time.” 

“I am not satisfied to have you go with him, 
dear.” 

There was an undeniable gleam of anger in 
Bek's eyes. 

“ Then why did you not say so before ? ” 

“I think I trusted too much to your common 
sense. I don’t know why common sense should 
fail a girl in these matters and no others. Do 
you ? ” The tone quieted her. 

“No,” she said slowly, “but I think it does — 
sometimes.” 


96 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


“His uncle and aunt are uneasy because you 
give him so much of your time, and they don’t 
know half how much time you do give him. 
Bekie, if I thought you cared for him — I don’t 
know what I should do.” 

Her mother’s lips grew white and she leaned 
against the wall as if to support herself. 

If her mother thought she cared! And she 
expected to promise to marry him this afternoon. 

“Have they said so — to you?” 

Bek’s lips were as white as her mother’s. 

“Yes.” 

“ I don’t see why,” she said, the old perplexity 
coming into her eyes and fashioning itself into 
a frown. “You must see, mother — how he has 
changed.” 

“ I see need enough of change now— Bekie, 
child, it is his purpose that is not right; his 
worldliness is at variance with every breath you 
draw.” 

Bek knew that. 

Mrs. Maurice straightened herself and the color 
flushed back into her face. When she was to 
leave Bek so soon too I 

“Mamma, you don’t feel strong to-day,” cried 
Bek throwing both arms about her. 


THE SECRET IN AN OLD BOOK. 


97 


“ No, not very,” said her mother with a sob in 
her throat. 

She scolded herself for her childishness; but 
was not Bek her very life! And how she had 
prayed that she might leave Bek with a hus- 
band like the husband of her own youth. But 
Bek was more self-reliant than she had been. 

“ Oh, mother, mother,” all her long conflict 
was in the cry. “When he is away from me, I 
think I believe in him, but when he comes I am 
not satisfied. I am not satisfied with him; but I 
thought — perhaps — it was such beautiful work — 
and he needs me — ” 

“Has he said so?” 

“Yes,” murmured Bek drooping her head. 

“My dear child.” 

“ Mother, I didn’t hurry it. I didn’t want it — . 
it came, somehow. And I have fought and fought 
against it.” 

“And prayed about it?” 

“Yes,” she whispered. 

Oh, how she had prayed about it! And her 
mother could speak of it so quietly. 

“ Don’t think God shows you what to do before 
He does show you. Let some of the answer come 
through me. I forbid you, I forbid you, remember, 


98 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


to accept him until we know him well and trust 
him better. Let what I say — what your mother 
says and your own father would say the same — be 
God’s delay in showing you what to say to him. 
I would be happier if you would refuse him, un- 
conditionally. Oh, to think that my child, that 
your father’s child, should ever want to Inarry one 
who does not believe in Jesus Christ.” 

Never in her life had Bek heard her mother 
speak with such vehemence. She had not been 
a talking mother; now, when it was too late, how 
she wished that she had been! Bek had always 
been one of the hungry children that Mr. Prentiss 
had pictured that night. If she had been fed with 
the truth all along the years she never could have 
seen anything to be attracted with in Julius Pren- 
tiss. Vaguely her mother felt this. But her lips 
must be unloosed now ; they would so soon be still. 

“Can you not stay at home to-day?” 

Bek’s rebellious heart said “no,” but she was 
silent. 

Why might not God have answered her prayers 
already ? Why must she take her answer in this 
way through her mother? Through her mother’s 
misunderstanding of him and prejudice against 
him, it might be. And then, Bek’s heart arose in 


THE SECRET IN AN OLD BOOK. 


99 


triumph, was her step-father a Christian and had 
not her mother married liim? 

“Mother,” her voice faltered, that was not 
triumphant, “father isn’t a Christian and you 
married him!” 

“Yes, dear, I know it. And that is one reason 
that I do not want you to do it. For a long time 
I walked in the dark — that’s one reason that 1 
haven’t been a better mother to you — he would 
not go with me and in many things I went with 
him, on the world’s side. Oh, Bekie, marriage is 
too happy a thing to be spoiled like this ! ” 

“But — mother — the unbelieving husband is 
sanctified by the wife,” faltered Bek. 

“My husband has not been, although he’s a 
dear, good husband to me. That comfort is given 
to xoiveSy remember, they are not bidden to leave 
their unbelieving husbands, St. Paul was writing to 
the married wives who became Christians after they 
were married; he was not writing to Christian 
maidens choosing husbands. He would bid you 
to marry ‘ only in the Lord.’ Don’t you know he 
would ? Don’t you know what the Lord Himself 
bids you ? ” 

“Yes,” whispered Bek. 

But Dr. Prentiss had said that she was a power 


100 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


for good in his life! What would become of him 
if she took herself away from him? 

“Bek, do you promise?” 

Her mother’s tone meant that she should promise. 

“Promise what?” 

“Not to accept him, at present.” 

“ I don’t know,” said Bek. 

“ I would rather that you would not go with him 
to-day in your present mood.” 

“What is my mood?” laughed Bek. 

It was a relief to know that she could laugh 
again. She had never disobeyed her mother in 
her life. 

“Mother, can’t you trust me?” she asked, 
coaxingly. 

“No.” 

“I don’t see why not.” 

“Because your heart is on his side. You would 
promise before you knew it, and then, by and by, 
have to be a promise-breaker.” 

“ Have you any reason beside a feeling for not 
trusting him?” Bek asked, afraid of the answer 
her question might bring. 

“Yes.” 

She picked at the trimming at her mother’s 
sleeve; her lips could not frame “what reason?” 


THE SECRET IN AN OLD BOOK, 


101 


“ His uncle says that he is a mass of selfishness, 
that he is utterly without any principle, that he is 
fickleness itself — ” 

“I don’t believe it,” Bek burst out. 

“Don’t you believe Mr. Dunraven?” 

Bek thought a moment. How could she not 
believe Mr. Dunraven? 

“I want you to be moved by the right and 
wrong of it.” 

“ 1 am — by the right of it. Whatever he is, he 
isn’t fickle ! He has told me plenty of times that 
he never saw any one before he saw me.” 

“ It was not a pleasant thing for Mr. Dunraven 
to do, was it?” 

“No,” acknowledged Bek. 

“ He called this morning while you were in the 
schoolroom; from something Dr. Prentiss said he 
gathered that he was engaged to you.” 

“He isn’t,” said Bek, impetuously. 

“ Bek, will you stay home to-day ? ” 

“I — don’t want to.” 

“Some day when you look back you will be 
glad that you did it to please mother.” 

“Oh, don’t speak like that! I will stay. When 
I am sure that he is weak and wicked. I’ll give 
him up; but I do want to be sure.” 


102 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


“You will be sure. Mr. Dunraven says that he 
never behaved himself before for such a long time 
in his life. He is hoping for him and trying to 
help him. He is the one to help him; you are not. 
It grieved him to say this to me, but he did not 
dare to keep it from me. lie was your father’s 
friend and he is a true friend to you. He says 
that it would not- hurt him so much to bury you 
as to marry you to Julius Prentiss.” 

Bek hid her frightened eyes. Was she saved 
just in time? 

“Mamma! Mammal” called Floy upstairs. 

There was always some one calling. Bek hur- 
ried up to her own chamber and locked the. door. 
Then she stood still and did nothing. What was 
there to do? She tore the golden and crimson 
autumn leaves from the front of her dress and 
scattered them on the carpet; she had gathered 
and arranged them for him; now, if Mr. Dunraven 
had spoken true, she never could do anything more 
for him. She must go to sleep and not think of 
him and awake in the morning and not expect 
him. What was there to live for any more? Nell’s 
feet were on the stairs and her teasing voice at 
the door. 

“Here’s a letter from the indefatigable letter 


THE SECRET IN AN OLD BOOK. 


103 


writer, he gave it me just now and said to tell 
you that he was sent for in another direction and 
could not go to Maple Hill until to-morrow.” 

Mischievous Nell waited to see her tear open 
the Envelope and then ran away laughing. The 
letter was dated the evening previous; he began 
by saying that his heart was overflowing and 
he must pour it out to her. 

His cousin Janet had piles of letters with this 
same original expression in them, but how could 
Bek know that? The first long page was written 
enthusiastically ; it was a description of the perfect 
night in which he was writing: the diction was 
elegant, the thoughts the outgrowth of spiritual 
life, every phrase was the expression of a mind 
attuned to God’s mind. 

Not waiting to read it all, with eyes alight, 
she flew down-stairs to her mother. 

“Mother, let me read this to you,” she cried, 
excitedly. 

Mrs. Maurice pushed her pattern aside, laid 
the scissors on the table and drew Bertie closer 
to smooth his curls while Bek read her letter. 

“And now you can judge what stufi* his 
heart is made of — and his intellect,” she cried, 
“ see if you ever heard anything finer.” 


104 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


Mrs. Maurice listened intently as Bek read in 
a breathless manner. Her elocution, certainly, 
did not give any finish to its beauty. She 
looked up once with a glance of triumph; but 
her mother’s eyes were fixed on the top of 
Bertie’s head. 

“ Isn’t it glorious, mother ? ” she asked, holding 
the sheet carefully so that her mother might not 
catch the effusive beginning. 

“ It certainly is.” 

“ Isn’t there refinement in it ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“And culture.” 

“More than enough.” 

“And spirituality?” with a little triumphant 
nod. 

“Certainly enough.” 

“Then you have changed your mind!” she 
cried, jubilantly, “oh, I wish I dared read it to 
Mr. Dunraven.” 

“I wouldn’t advise you to.” 

“Why not? Wouldn’t he admire it?” 

“Probably he has, for years. Your father 
read that to me twenty years ago and more. 
Come with me and I will find it for you in 
one of your father’s books ! ” Her mother pushed 


THE SECRET IN AN OLD BOOK. 


105 


her work from her and without glancing at her 
went into the back parlor and there in the 
book-case found the book. If Dr. Prentiss had 
cultivated his observing faculties to the point 
that the magician he quoted had done he would 
have known that the book was there. Crushed, 
at last, Bek waited, without speaking or stirring. 
Her mother placed the open book in her hand 
and then stooped to take her paper pattern from 
under Bertie’s feet. Surely enough there it was 
word for word ; even the punctuation was copied. 
And one word spelled in the old-fashioned way 
he had spelled in the old-fashioned way. And 
he had affirmed that the thoughts came to him 
as he thought of her and gazed out into the night. 

Slowly turning, with the letter in her cold 
fingers, she went away upstairs again. She was 
trembling with anger. To think that he should 
dare deceive her so ! Without reading the third 
and fourth pages she tore it into fragments. 
She sobbed with anger a long while, and then 
she sobbed with real grief; the tea bell found 
her too ashamed of herself to present herself 
before them all, and she sent word down by 
Floy that she had a headache. 

But morning found her calmer; of course, he 


106 


'BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


intended to tell her that he had done it to tease 
her, had he not laughed at her last week and 
said that she was as trying as a book of quotations 
always open. And, of course, he had done this 
to test her; she wished though that her mother 
had not seen it, for she would not accept any 
excuse! And if her mother had not discovered 
it how would she have known? She heartily 
wished that the book had been destroyed years 
ago and then she would not have had this new 
doubt of him in her heart. 

It was two days before he called, even with 
this intervening time Bek could not greet him 
as lightly as usual. 

“ Oh, how could you tease me so ? ” she asked 
almost immediately. 

. “How?” 

“Don’t you know how?” she asked seriously. 

“No,” he answered wonderingly. 

“ Haven’t you written anything to tease me ? ” 

“ Why, no, why should I ? ” 

“ Think 1 Think carefully I In that last letter.” 

“That last letter,” he repeated. 

“You copied something,” she hesitated, “about 
the night.” 

A look of surprise, then of anger, and then, 


THE SECRET IN AN OLD BOOK. 


107 


quickly collecting, and re-collecting himself, he 
laughed. 

“ Oh, that ! I knew you would detect that ! 
But I thought I could, deceive you. I know 
you keep a library of quotations in your pocket.” 

“I was so angry that I wouldn’t finish the 
letter.” 

“ I am glad it affected you so much. You 
will never know what you have lost.” 

“No,” she said slowly, “I know what I have 
lost.” 

“Your faith in me, you mean,” he returned 
impatiently. “ Why will you not take my word ? ” 

“I don’t know; I can’t.” 

“Stuff! Don’t be ridiculous. I tell you it 
was a joke and that’s the end of it.” 

She went to the piano and sat down ; she 
could not trust herself to talk, she could scarcely 
trust herself to touch the piano ; he wheeled 
an armchair to the end of the piano and sat 
with his face averted and shaded with his hand. 
The defiant expression of his lips troubled her. 
There was nothing more to be done; she would 
do her best to believe him, but how pitiful that 
poor little best was 1 Her soft playing seemed 
to irritate him more and more and when she 


108 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


burst into one of Janet’s favorite marches he 
sprang to his feet and threw up his arms. 

Had he risked all and lost all; he had given 
up his cousin Janet and he had not gained Bek 
Westerly ! 

The children of this world are wiser in their 
generation than the children of light, but, oh, 
what a fool he had been 1 

“Bek, I’m going,” he said in a husky voice, 
standing behind her. “Your music sets me 
wild. When you are willing to take my word 
send for me and I will come.” 

“Yes,” she said, not turning to him. 

“Promise me that you will write to me — ” 

“Yes.” 

“I will wait a lifetime for it,” he said in a 
suppressed tone. 

“There will be no need.” 

He would have spoken eagerly but she in- 
terrupted him: 

“I will think and — write to you — some day!” 

“Poor child! poor little girlie,” he said ten- 
derly, “ for your own sake I hope you will never 
believe in me. But I shall be lost without you.” 

He went out into the night with the picture 
of the golden - headed girl at the piano ; the 


THE SECRET IN AN OLD BOOK. 


109 


troubled lips and wistful eyes followed him 
many days. 

And she, for many days and nights her mind 
and heart were in a turmoil. Everything went 
on just the same: studies, work and outside 
amusement and occupation ; her mother grew 
slighter and more feeble, less able to be about 
the house, but Bek did not notice it. She was 
wholly absorbed in her own perplexity. 

A sudden resolution came to her, it was a 
wild, unheard of step to take, but the idea seized 
and possessed her; this was two months after 
that night that she had let him go away. He 
had not called since, and she had not met him 
at his own home, the Parsonage, having ar- 
ranged her visits so that he would be absent; 
to stay away from Marne Dunraven altogether 
she did not dare. Twice he had happened to 
call upon Mrs. Raymond while she was there, 
but it was not difficult to make an errand to 
another part of the house, and Gertrude never 
suspected that she felt it embarrassing to meet 
him. 

“The new doctor likes to talk to Gertrude,” 
grandfather remarked one evening to Bek. 

“Everybody likes to talk to her,” Bek replied. 


110 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


But this sudden and wild resolution did not 
come of anything she learned there or at the 
Parsonage, it was inspired by a remark of Mr. 
D unraven’s in an afternoon call upon her mo- 
ther. Bek had not even noticed that the min- 
ister called every Thursday afternoon to see her 
mother. 

The remark was this: “Weighty questions de- 
mand weighty consideration.” Another time she 
would not have remembered it; but a weighty 
question was pressing all the gladness out of 
her life. 

This resolution was to write a letter to Mark 
Kyerson, Dr. Prentiss’ “ great friend,” and ask 
him to prove to her mother and Mr. Dunraven 
that Dr. Prentiss was a good and true man. Dr. 
Prentiss had once said of Mark Kyerson: 

“ He would pluck out his right eye sooner than 
tell a lie.” 

She perfectly remembered his address; without 
revealing too much, she could ask him to write 
to her all he knew of his friend. Dr. Prentiss. 

“I know she will never yield,” Dr. Prentiss 
said once, grimly to himself, remembering the 
set of her lips that last evening, and then he 
smiled to think of the fun there would be in 


THE SECRET IN AN OLD BOOK. 


Ill 


her eyes if he should tell her of the native 
Australian suitor who throws a club at the 
maiden of his choice, she never yielding until 
she is knocked down. 

“How can I prove myself what I am not,” he 
thought bitterly, “how can I become what I 
would be for her sake?” 

Meanwhile Bek was trying to decide if she 
might write such a letter. Who ever heard of 
such a thing as writing such a letter to a stranger? 
But it was her only hope; who else could help 
her? She dared not write it, and she did not 
dare not to write it. But it must be written 
or her courage would utterly fail. 

With a desperate effort she dropped into a 
chair and opened her writing desk; she trembled, 
her fingers dropped the pen; she leaned back in 
her chair — the slow tears rolling down her cheeks. 

“It isn’t wrong to do; God doesn’t think so,” 
she cried aloud, “ I xoiU do it.” 

Hurriedly her pen sped over the paper. There 
was no attempt at a beginning. 

“I hardly know how I dare write to you; it 
must be because I do not dare not to write. I 
know only one thing about you: that you speak 


112 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


the truth. I am writing to you to convince my 
mother more than myself. I write it because it 
is the only way out of a great difficulty. Dr. 
Julius Prentiss once spoke to me of you as if he 
trusted you. He said you had known him all 
his life and had been his great friend. Will you 
please write to me and tell me all you know of 
him? He is a perfect gentleman, an excellent 
physician, and a favorite in the village. His 
uncle, Mr. Dunraven, is our pastor; he does not 
think him trustworthy, and has influenced my 
mother to believe as he does. But I can’t help 
hoping they are both mistaken. He is very un- 
happy at times, and I am sure he is bearing 
some heavy burden; he confessed that he was, 
but said my decision would help him bear it, 
and make his way clear. Please write immedi- 
ately. I cannot rest until I hear from you. My 
father died before I could speak; I have no one 
to help me in this thing. I am resolved to be 
obedient; all I want to know is the thing that 
God wants me to do. If he is not a good man, 
but if he is weak and wicked, I may be un- 
happy, but I will not — Pardon this intrusion, 
and help me as I would help some one belong- 
ing to you if I could.” 


THE SECRET IN AN OLD BOOK. 


113 


She signed her name; there was nothing else 
to say. Her fingers trembled so exceedingly that 
the closing lines were scarcely legible ; the name 
and address upon the envelope were so crooked 
that she threw it aside and used another. 

It was nearly dark on a November afternoon 
when the letter was finished; it was a long walk 
to the post-office, and she had never walked such 
a distance alone after dark. But there was no 
alternative, Chip was spending the night from 
home; she could not ask the girls to go with 
her, for Lulu had a cold; and the twins were in 
her mother’s chamber amusing Bertie. She could 
not sleep unless the letter were on its way ; if she 
should give it to the driver of the mail-stage in 
the morning, he might forget to mail it for a 
week, as he had once forgotten a letter to Mol lie. 
It was most cruel to keep Dr. Prentiss in this 
long suspense, and she could not decide until she 
knew surely — 

What did she want to know surely? 

She was so weary and bewildered that she 
scarcely remembered what it was that she was 
so urgently seeking to discover. It was some- 
thing to satisfy her mother; something to help 
some one who loved her to be happy and good. 


114 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


Up there in God’s kingdom there were no 
puzzling troubles like this; every one was true 
and to be trusted; her sorrow now had come 
upon her because she had so far linked herself 
with one who was outside the kingdom. She 
knew he was outside, he acknowledged it him- 
self. Would she go outside with him? No one 
beside the Holy Spirit could give him eternal 
life, could bring him inside the kingdom where 
she Avas. Why not destroy the letter ? Why 
not write to Dr. Prentiss instead and tell him 
that she was sure God had not chosen him to 
to be her husband? 

Lingering at the gate with the letter in her 
hand, she hesitated, she grasped it in her fingers 
to destroy it, but something Avithheld her; the 
letter was in God’s plan somewhere, if not to 
help her in this, to help her in some other 
thing. She did not think this; it is I who am 
thinking it for her — and for you. 

Every moment it was growing darker, some 
time ago the sun had gone down behind the 
square white tower of the church at Clovernook; 
the November twilight was deepening into star- 
light. It was not pleasant to think of the dark 
mile homeward. She had not yet faith enough 


THE SECRET IN AN OLD BOOK. 


115 


to see clearly in the dark. She might send it 
to-morrow, after all what difference would one 
day make? It would be only one day more. To 
her young heart, hot and restless, the one day 
more stretched on endlessly. 

“He that believeth shall not make haste.” 
But Bek’s faith was not perfect yet. The air 
touched her with a chill as she hastened on ; a 
storm had been threatening all day. The long, 
dark mile was passed; out of breath she stood 
at last upon the steps of the post-office. A 
touch upon her shoulder startled her; she drew 
back, hushing the cry that had come to her 
lips. 

“ Excuse me,” said Dr. Prentiss, “ I thought 
you heard my step. May I do your errand for 
you? It is not fitting for you to be here alone.” 

“ I know I am foolish, but I had a letter to mail 
and ran away with it myself,” she said. 

“That was foolish. May I mail it for you?” 

“Yes, please. No, thank you,” she added with- 
drawing the letter as she was about placing it in 
his hand. 

“Can’t you trust me even with a letter?” he 
asked bitterly. 

“1 can’t trust any one but myself with this,” 


116 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


she returned, hastily. “Are there many men in 
the store ? I don’t like to stumble over men and 
small boys ? ” 

“As many as usual.” 

“ I will take it. Excuse me,” glancing into his 
embarrassed face as the light from the store win- 
dows fell over it, “you may think it a freak; it is 
only a secret.” 

Brushing past him, she entered the store and 
deposited her letter. She caught her breath — it 
was done now, it was on its way, there was no- 
thing to do except the hardest doing of all — doing 
nothing at all. 

She stepped out on the low, long piazza and 
found Dr. Prentiss waiting for her. 

“ May I walk home with you ? ” he asked with 
his assured manner. 

She turned to look at the long line of dark road. 

“You are afraid,” he asked, smiling. “You did 
not count the cost of coming.” 

“ I did,” she answered slowly, “ I am not afraid. 
Good night, and thank you kindly.” 

“ Do you think that I will let you go alone ? ” he 
asked reproachfully. 

“Yes, if you can’t help yourself!” she laughed 
slipping away from the hand that detained her. 


THE SECRET IN AN OLD BOOK. 


117 


Dr. Prentiss was biting his lip with vexation; he 
was curious about that letter and had determined 
to discover its destination. At one glance as it 
almost touched his hand he had caught “San 
Francisco.” 

“ I cannot understand why you will be so rude 
to me,” he answered angrily. 

“ I can. It is one of the things you must be- 
lieve without understanding,” she said demurely. 

An old-fashioned two-wheel chaise at that in- 
stant drove up to the piazza, an old-fashioned head 
looked out and called: 

“ Hurrah ! My mail please.” 

“ 0, doctor ! ” exclaimed Kebekah, eagerly, “ are 
you going my way and will you take me home?” 

“ What are you here alone for ? ” he inquired 
good-humoredly. 

“ To have a drive with you,” she retorted with 
pretty promptness. 

“Jump in, then. Excuse me for not getting out 
to help you in. You are spryer than I am.” 

A boy came out with the doctor’s letters and 
papers. Dr. Prentiss gave them to the doctor and 
assisted Kebekah as she stepped into the low 
chaise. 

The old doctor made room for her, pushing sev- 


118 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


eral packages out of the way under the seat, Dr. 
Prentiss tucked the robe about her feet, lifted 
his hat without meeting her eyes and said good 
night. 

“ Good night,” said Kebekah, lingering over the 
simple words. . 

It was hard to be rude to him. 

“ 0, doctor ! Dr. Prentiss ! ” she called, as the 
old doctor spoke to his horse. “ In my hurry I 
forgot to stamp my letter! Will you stamp it, 
please ? ” 

“With pleasure,” he answered gravely. 

“I’m so sorry,” she exclaimed, indignant with 
herself. 

“ I came opportunely, it seems,” said Dr. Mason, 
as he turned the horse’s head toward the dark 
road she had been so afraid of a moment before. 

“Yes, sir,” replied Kebekah, absent-mindedly. 

“ That young man is bound to succeed. As a 
stroke of policy I intend to take him in with me — 
to make a trial of it, anyway. I am getting too 
old to go out nights.” 

What would her mother think of this? Dr. 
Mason was considered the ablest physician for 
miles around and had the largest practice. 

“ I suppose I might as well,” added the doctor 


THE SECRET IN AN OLD BOOK. 


119 


with a low chuckle, “he comes every other night 
to sing with Nettie, and she will if I don’t.” 

How Kebekah’s eyes shone in the dark! This 
was how he was consoliug himself in his waiting 
time! In this waiting tin e when her heart was 
aching sol 


BEWILDEEED. 


It was fully four weeks — every day and night of 
four weeks, every waiting hour of four weeks — 
since she had mailed the letter, and for aught that 
she had received in reply it might as well not 
have been written. She drew long breaths when 
she was alone brooding over her disappointment 
and conjuring all possible reasons for the delay; 
no, it was delay no longer, it was positive, absolute 
and most cruel denial; if Mr. Kyerson were living, 
what reason could he have for not noticing the 
letter ? Did he think it not worth a reply ? Was 
her letter bold and unmaidenly, unwomanly ? 
Had she done a thing that no other girl would do? 
Did he despise her and laugh at her? Would he 
want any one to treat his sister so shamefully? 
Or his wife, or daughter ? It would be easier to 
give up all hope of ever hearing than to bear 
this suspense. 


BEWILDERED. 


121 


If it were not for being housekeeper while her 
mother was confined to her chamber with a heavy- 
cold, and if it were not for the music lessons and 
Nell’s French and Chip’s Latin, and her class in 
Sunday school and the Foreign Mission Band of 
which she was president, and her letters to Mollie 
and Miss Southernwood, she would have had time 
to be very miserable. 

She was too young and strong to be heavily 
burdened and she had faith in God. He would 
not let her be put to shame, for she had trusted 
in Him. 

And, then, she did not believe in Dr. Prentiss 
as fully as she tried to persuade herself that she 
did believe. She was sure that if she accepted 
his love, his protection, his companionship, she 
would be hungry for something better all her 
life. And yet, because the better thing was not 
at hand she was tempted to satisfy herself with 
this lesser thing. Just as if God does not know 
what will satisfy us, and is not seeking to make 
us hungry for it and ready for it. Girls, you do 
not know what you lose by not waiting for the 
best thing. 

Day and night she reasoned with herself, talked 
to herself, and replied to herself, and the conclu- 


122 


BEK'S FIE ST CORNER. 


sioii was ever the same, — Mr. Kyerson thought 
such a letter beneath his notice; she was bold 
and unwomanly to write thus to a stranger; he 
pitied her and laughed at her! If he had any 
dreadful thing to tell her he would surely write 
and save her 1 Perhaps the letter was lost. But 
why should that be lost more than any other? 
]\Iollie, having known all from the beginning, 
suggested some new combination of circumstances 
twice a week, but none of them had any weight 
with her; Mollie was sentimental and romantic, 
and Kebekah was neither. The letter was a plain 
matter-of-fact affair, written on mercantile note, 
as business-like in outward appearance as any of 
the dozen letters that might be laid on his desk that 
same mail. It was as sure to go safely as though 
she had presented a bill or questioned him about 
the character of a servant. It might be that Dr. 
Prentiss had neglected to attend to the postage; 
but the clerk was one of her Sunday-school boys, 
he would not let it be detained. She had met Dr. 
Prentiss four times since that night: at church, at 
the Parsonage where she had called on an errand 
from her mother, at the village Mite Society where 
he had taken Nettie Mason out to supper, and once 
in the street; there had been no opportunity to 


BEWILDERED. 


123 


remind him of the letter, even if she had cared 
to do so. 

Perhaps — but she repelled the charge with hot 
indignation — perhaps he had asked for the letter 
— he had a good excuse for asking for it — and 
after seeing the address, upon some pretence had 
kept it in his possession. He might have opened 
it and read it ! She was provoked at herself 
that such an accusation could flash across her 
mind, but having found entrance it came again 
and again. Would she believe him if he denied 
it? Her mother did not believe that he had 
meant to “tease” her in copying the description 
of the evening; she believed that he had deliber- 
ately intended to deceive her. Was she. unjust to 
him or was the impression of his untruthfulness 
meant to be her safegaurd? She did not know, 
but you and I know. The four weeks ran into 
flve, six, seven. She would have given up all 
hope of ever hearing from the stranger, but that 
she did not know how to give up. Mollie wrote 
four full sheets to prove to her that in giving up 
Dr. Prentiss, she was throwing away something 
that some day she might cry for in vain. 

“ When you are old and have no one to love 
you, you will think of the love you have so 


124 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


lightly thrown away,” urged Mollie in pitiful 
strain. 

“ Then I’ll think of it,” answered Kebekah, 
stoutly. “ I would rather think of that than 
that I had done wrong. And you know, Mollie, 
that I do believe that I’m taken care of.” 

Once he had said pathetically: “Everything 
has been against me all my life.” And now she 
was “against” him; she was not wholly on his 
side. He was weak and needed her, he pleaded; 
her soul rebelled at this; she loved strength, 
she could not love weakness in one who should 
be to her strength, who should be to her what 
Christ was to the church. Oh, how could she 
ever expect any one to be to her what Christ was 
to the church ! 

Mollie had nothing to say when Kebekah gave 
her ideal as high as this; this was a height to 
which she could never hope to climb. “ I’m only 
a broken reed,” Dr. Prentiss had once written to 
her. This might be very touching, but energetic 
Kebekah had no taste for broken reeds. Mollie 
delighted in the theory of broken reeds; she was 
continually seeking to impress Kebekah with the 
grandeur of saving Dr. Prentiss’ soul. At first 
Kebekah had been startled, and then she had 


BEWILDERED. 


125 


been angry, zealous for the honor of the Lord. 
“ How dare you say such a thing to me ? ” she 
had written in reply. “ Do you forget who saves 
men’s souls ? If a girl cannot obey the Lord her- 
self, she is a queer one to send on such a mission ! 
Being faithless in the least, I cannot believe I 
would be asked to be faithful in so much. 0, 
Mollie ! ” 

It was almost February when Dr. Prentiss 
called one afternoon to see her father. As she 
passed through the parlor, she heard him remark 
to her father: 

“Mark Kyerson is just the man to attend to 
it for you; he has been in New York some time, 
he left San Francisco in the fall. He is keen 
enough to see through anybody. I’d advise you 
to put this speculation into his hands.” 

He glanced at Kebekah, but she was stooping 
over baby Bertie. This was the reason then ! 
He had been in New York while her letter was 
on its way to San Francisco I Was she relieved, 
or did it bring back the old doubt that must be 
solved in some way? 

“What is his address?” her father asked. 

She caught up the baby and hurried out. It 
would be too much of a temptation to know; she 


126 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


might feel as if she wanted to write again. What 
a little world she lived in, to find after all this 
waiting, this stranger so close to her! Dropping 
her head on Bertie’s bosom she uttered a low, 
inarticulate cry; it held the heart of a prayer. 
If she might see Miss Southernwood, the touch 
of her hand, the sound of her voice, would bring 
a blessing. Some one must help her. 

“ Mother I ” she cried, hastening upstairs with 
Bertie in her arms and bursting into her mother’s 
chamber, “ may I go to Kutledge Felix to-morrow? ” 

Mrs. Maurice was mending stockings with a 
very contented face; she let her work fall on 
her lap and looked up at Rebekah. The child 
had been drooping since Christmas, the monotony 
of home life might be wearing upon her. 

“Rutledge Felix! It would be a pleasant change. 
But don’t let them keep you. To-morrow ! I 
don’t know. How can you get off to-morrow?” 

“ Easily enough. Lulu will be housekeeper. 
And your cough is almost well.” 

“ I thought they had finished you, Bekie. Have 
you discovered a lack?” 

“Now, mamma, my precious mamma!” she 
cried kneeling beside her and taking her in both 
arms, “don’t you begin to be sarcastic in your 


BEWILDERED, 


127 


old age! I want something and I hope I shall 
find it at Entledge Felix.” 

“I hope you may, dear,” half sighed her mother; 
“we all want something I suspect. Your father 
wants money more than anything, just now; he 
has been losing a great deal.” 

“ But it doesn’t worry you, mother 1 ” said Ke- 
bekah, anxiously. 

“No: money is not the best thing. But it 
worries Mm; he says he will mortgage the farm, 
but that he will try another venture to regain 
what he has lost.” 

“Oh, don’t let him. Don’t let him do that! 
What would you and the children do without it ? ’ 

“ And you ? ” brushing her hair back and look- 
ing down into the flushed, pleading face. 

“I haven’t begun to make use of myself yet! 
All this time and I am doing nothing with 
myself.” 

“Lulu is ready for Kutledge Felix, and the 
twins play wonderfully for children of their age, 
and Chip has a start that will help him all his 
life. You are very thorough, child.” 

“ Yes, that’s all I am ; not a bit brilliant. But, 
mother, I want to use myself; the children have 
no pressing need of me; Lulu can take my place 


128 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


to them — if she do not go to Eutledge Felix. She 
is ready to teach herself now; I have taught 
her how to study by herself I want to lose 
myself in hard work; I gnaw too much upon my 
own imaginings.” 

The grave eyes were very much in earnest; 
to Mrs. Maurice a home of her own, husband 
and child had come so early that she had lost 
her daughter’s experience — whether it were loss 
or gain she could not decide — but Bekie was un- 
folding, she was growing with a painful growth 
and she did not know how to help her; if her 
child’s life were like her own, she would have been 
her best comforter and counsellor, but the child 
was travelling through a country that had not 
been mapped out for her; she became bewildered 
in trying to follow her, she was satisfied that 
she should find comfort and counsel in one who 
had taken the same toiling steps — she would love 
her and pray for her and be content not to un- 
derstand her. 

“Bekie, dear, I will let you go; perhaps I 
was selfish to keep you with me for my sake 
and the children’s; but it hasn’t been bad for 
you, has it?” she asked regretfully. 

“No; it has been good for me!” returned Re- 


BEWILDERED. 


129 


bekah, springing to her feet, “but it isn’t good, 
just now.” 

“You are not mine — only. Find your work 
and do it,” said her mother in her fond, regret- 
ful voice. > 

“ And you will not be troubled about anything, 
you will keep your bright face for me to come 
home to ! And you will save the farm and keep 
father from ‘ turning his money over ’ as he calls 
it. I want the school-room and the class-rooms 
again and the sound of recitation and the drum- 
ming on the piano and the girls’ voices, and 
I want the work. And, mother,” turning ner- 
vously towards her, “please send me my mail, 
' every single thing that comes. Don’t trust Lulu ; 
she might forget. Mr. Kutledge may not need 
me now, but I think I may find something to 
do.” 

Something to do, not something to be. The 
young heart, hot and restless, was hardly ready 
to settle down to he something. Surely they 
“serve, who stand and wait” in Christ’s king- 
dom; but, God, I think, does not love us less 
because we are eager to be on the alert for 
Him. Rebekah wondered why He had not an- 
swered her prayer and sent a reply to her letter; 


130 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER, 


she did not know that, often, instead of praying 
to Him about it, she had worried before Him. 
“And when the people complained it displeased 
the Lord.” 

Slow tears dropped upon Mrs. Maurice’s pillow 
that night; was she failing her eldest daughter 
in a time of need? Would she fail the others, 
too? Was she more a help to her husband than 
to her children? 


X 


Yll. 

THE END OF SOMETHING. 

“Shadow owes its truth to light.” — Gay. 

A February morning that was spring; the old 
stage rolled up on the green grass before the 
gate and the driver shouted, “All aboard! Forty 
minutes to meet the train.” 

“This shawl strap is so full, Bekie, I expect 
you will wish you had taken a trunk,” said Mrs. 
Maurice in the hall. 

It was very much like the old times of part- 
ing; she could not say another word; she had 
Lulu now, almost a grown-up daughter, but Lulu 
had not Bek’s pretty, loving ways. 

“ There’s no one in the stage,” said Nell, snatch- 
ing up the shawl strap. 

“ Good-bye, precious,” whispered Eebekah with 
both arms about her little mother. “I’ll come 
home all made over new — and I’ll be ever so 
good.”. 


132 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


“All aboard^" shouted the stage-driver impa- 
tiently, “ thirty reight minutes to catch the train.” 

There was some one within, she had caught 
a glimpse of a dark face and a soft black felt 
hat. She flushed uncomfortably and bowed with 
more stiffness than dignity. She was not drawn 
to him this morning, only for love’s sake, his 
love’s sake; she did not want to miss any good 
thing, and yet she was not ready to take the 
good thing — the best thing from him. 

“ 0, Bek,” Chip was calling, rushing out to the 
gate, “I forgot to give you your letter last night 
and you might have gone away and left it in 
my Sunday jacket.” 

“ It would have kept,” said Dr. Prentiss, reach- 
ing out to take it. 

She grasped it — almost snatched it. The super- 
scription was in a hand that she did not recog- 
nize; the postmark was New York. 

After all this time ! Her sigh of relief was 
painful. The Angers that held it trembled visibly. 

“Your correspondent writes a long letter,” re- 
marked her companion carelessly. 

“Yes,” she said, crushing it in her hand. 

“I will excuse you,” he said courteously. 

“Thank you; you said it would keep and so 


THE END OF SOMETHING. 


133 


it will,” she returned, lightly slipping it into the 
pocket of her sacqiie. 

If she might believe in him ! It would strength- 
en her more to believe in him than to love him. 
Her faith in God was more to her at all times 
than her love to Him. 

Dr. Prentiss, after assisting her to her seat, 
had placed himself at her side. His eyes and 
voice were unmistakably glad ; there was an alert- 
ness, a spring about him that thrilled her from 
head to foot. 

“ Has somebody died and left you a fortune ? ” 
she asked, as the old stage rumbled over the 
grass. 

“ As somebody did for you once ! ” he returned. 

“Mine was a fortune; I often wonder what 1 
should have been without it.” 

“I was told you had squandered it all,” he 
said, questioningly. 

“ So far from it, I’m just awaking to the knowl- 
edge that I must put it to practical use,” she 
replied, provokingly. “ May yours serve you as 
well.” 

“Mine is not in dollars and cents; mine is 
release from a bond that I had found galling. 
My release came in the mail with your letter 


134 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


last uight Bek, I intend to behave myself now. 
Will that make you happy?” 

“ I want you always to have behaved yourself,” 
she answered severely. 

“Can’t I redeem myself?” 

“No.” 

“Why not?” 

“To redeem one’s self is a new doctrine.” 

“I know that I have no power to forgive my 
own sins, but, by behaving myself now, can I 
not blot out the past?” 

“In whose eyes?” 

* In yours,” he said slowly. 

She hesitated, the truth would be a hard 
thing to speak to him. 

“ Perhaps I am hard and unforgiving, perhaps 
I am proud, perhaps I am so afraid of sin touch- 
ing me, perhaps I am not loving and merciful, 
but I want to believe and trust and look up — 
and how can I to one who had been wicked 
before he loved me ? And had not repented ! ” 

“That’s nonsense. Who isrit a sinner?” 

“There are some sins we shrink from more 
than others. Some sins are in the grain; I think 
from such sins I would want one to turn away 
as well as to confess.” 


THE END OF SOMETHING. 


135 


Dr. Prentiss tried to laugh. He was well aware 
that his fickleness was in the grain. 

“ What else ? ” he asked. 

“I’m afraid I couldn’t forget; there would be 
a weakness that I should shrink from — a chain is 
as strong as its weakest part, and in the chain 
of my — regard for him there would be a want 
of faith that would make it ready to break.” 

“You may hate sin and love sinners, may you 
not?” he asked in a convincing tone. 

“Love them to do them good — not love them 
to believe in them,” she answered, earnestly. 

“You are a metaphysician. Suppose a man 
becomes a Christian — a new creature, and old 
things are passed away ! ” 

“Then he is another man, the old is passed 
away,” she said quickly, her eyes softening. 

“And nothing less would suffice you.” 

“Nothing less.” 

“Where have you been all your life?” he 
asked, impatiently. “You talk like an aged 
saint.” 

“With the girls at school and with mother,” 
she answered, literally. “I have not even read 
about the sin that is in the world.” 

He was silent; he had no self-defence to make. 


136 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


Truly this girl had been kept unspotted from the 
world. 

“This morning might be the first that ever 
was,” said Kebekah, after a while, “it is fresh 
enough to be just made.” 

“We men ought to thank the religion of Jesus 
Christ for giving our women to us,” said Dr. 
Prentiss, not heeding her. 

“Yes,” said Kebekah, with some effort, “and 
we women expect our husbands to be made by 
that same religion.” 

“You haven’t confided to me your destina- 
tion.” 

“I am going to Rutledge Felix in search of a 
vocation. I’m going to find some of my good 
things.” 

“Then you are an heiress.” 

“ Didn’t you know it ? I am heir of all the 
ages, and Aunt Kebekah helped me to find my 
inheritance. That reminds me of a newspaper 
story I read yesterday. How would I know 
about the world in far-away Clovernook if I 
didn’t read the newspapers ! An old gentleman 
out west wrote to his relatives east and asked 
them for money to help himself through the 
winter; no one responded, except a distant rel- 


THE END OF SOMETHING. 


137 


ative, a lady. She was a school-teacher and she 
sent him twenty-five dollars out of her own earn- 
ings. After several years he died and left her 
his entire fortune, amounting to something like 
a hundred thousand dollars.” 

“She made a good investment. Your Aunt 
Rebekah was rich, wasn’t she?” 

“ I don’t know. I never thought. I have sup- 
posed she gave me all she had to give beside the 
interest of three thousand to our Clovernook 
church, to go towards the pastor’s salary, be- 
cause of her love to my father. Mother and I 
were satisfied, although I do think it would be 
a relief to mother to have some of it now. I 
want to earn some for her. I don’t want her 
ever to have a careworn face like some of the 
farmers’ wives.” 

“ She will have if your father continues to 
speculate. Mark Ryerson will help him if any 
man can. He is one of the men that your re- 
ligion makes. Bek, haven’t you any good word 
to say to me?” 

“Not — ^yet,” she faltered. “You will ii<>( t ven 
try to be what I want you to be.” 

“You want me to pray. I never pray. I don’t 
know what to pray about. From this hour I’ll 


138 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


begin to be a straightforward fellow if you will 
take me.” 

“No,” said Rebekah, not firmly however. She 
was not as brave as she had believed herself to be : 
she had been talking of strength and how weak 
she was herself. 

“ I get out at the next house ; I have business 
there. Will you write to me ? ” 

“No,” she said, relentlessly, “they have a li- 
brary at Rutledge — I do not need your re- 
plies.” 

He laughed with great amusement, called to 
the driver to stop, and sprang out. She smiled, 
perhaps he had meant to tease her; she would 
believe in him as long as she could; that is, if 
she could believe in a man who did not pray and 
who did not know what to pray about. 

The letter was not opened immediately, she 
held it in her hand looking at it but not seeing 
it. Would it make any difference, after all? 
Was she not understanding God’s will without 
this testimony from a stranger? She had not 
believed that she could tear it open so quietly. 
There were two sheets; one contained but a few 
words : 


THE END OF SOMETHING. 


139 


“The enclosed letter has been returned to me 
from the Dead Letter Office. I find that I had 
directed it to Clover Hill instead of Clovernook. 
I trust that the delay has not caused you 
anxiety.” 

The second sheet ran thus: 

“ jMiss Eebekah Westerly. 

'‘'‘Dear Madam : — A letter from a friend in San 
Francisco rec’d yesterday enclosed a note from 
you. 1 am glad you wrote it. It is not like 
many people, but it is like you. I will answer 
it as I would wish another man to answer such 
a letter from my sister. 

“Julius Prentiss has been known to me for 
years. I would rather that you would discover 
his weaknesses for yourself. He has been en- 
gaged to his cousin, Jennie Prentiss, for five 
years; she is sincerely attached to him, and his 
faults are the faults she can best bear with. The 
wedding day has been set once, but postponed 
on account of some caprice of his; it was set 
again for March tenth, I believe, Janet’s birth- 
day. You may show him this letter, or I will 
speak to him of it myself iinless you enjoin si- 


140 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


lence upon me. Grateful that I can be of any 
service to you, I am, 

“Yours truly, 

“Mark Ryerson.” 

Again and again she read it, her indignation 
gathering afresh at every reperusal. He had 
dared to speak to her as he had spoken when 
he was honorably bound to some one else ! This 
was the “bond” he had broken when she, poor 
Jennie Prentiss, had trusted him so long. In 
her anger, in her bitter humiliation, she had not 
remembered that another was a thousand times 
more wronged. That afternoon she enclosed the 
sheets in an envelope addressed to “Julius Pren- 
tiss, M. D.” with a single pencilled line of her 
own: 

“May God forgive you.” 


YIII. 

MISS SOUTHEEWOOD. 

“That which God writes on thy forehead thou wilt come 
to.” — Kokan. 

Miss Southernwood’s little bedroom was the coziest 
room at Kutledge. How many times it had been 
a refuge to Kebekah ! It was a refuge to-night 
as she sat with large, troubled eyes watching 
Miss Southernwood as she wrote the last “ Keport.” 

“ I’m glad you have come to me, dear,” said 
Miss Southernwood closing her desk. “Mr. Kut- 
ledge is hoping to keep you a long while.” 

“ I don’t know,” sighed Kebekah, “ I don’t know 
anything about myself or my life. My life seems 
very little to me; the days slip by and I don’t 
know what I mean in living them.” 

“ Nor what God means either,” replied Miss 
Southernwood, gravely. 

Kebekah was sitting on the foot of the bed 
leaning against the low foot-board; she traced 


4 


142 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


the pattern on the carpet with the toe of her 
slipper before she raised her bewildered eyes. 

“ Do you not suppose that He means some- 
thing, something definite by every one of our 
days?” Miss Southernwood asked. 

“Why, yes,” confessed Eebekah, “do I think 
that His meaning is slipping away from me with 
my days? What can I do to keep hold of His 
meaning?” she questioned very earnestly. 

“ Keep a journal ! ” 

“Nonsense!” exclaimed the girl, impatiently. 
“I’ve tried that. I wore myself out by looking 
inside of myself.” 

“Keeping a journal means keeping your days. 
There are two ways of doing everything; a right 
way and a wrong way. 1 suppose you tried the 
wrong way. The egotistical way is the wrong 
way. If only your thoughts and your doings are 
to be recorded it will be depressing work indeed. 
God means you always, but He means every one 
else, as well. Once, I remember I thought of a 
certain occurrence: ‘Now this is to teach me a 
lesson,’ and to my humiliation I learned that my 
part in it was all for some one else.” 

“I tried to keep a journal while I was here 
and the fi^-st year I was home, but it was dis- 


MISS SOUTHERNWOOD. 


143 


couraging. It kept me thinking about myself; 
I was my own heroine, the world was all mine 
and the Bible was written just for me. I gave 
it up and burnt the book.” 

“That was the way to grow weak, now try 
the way to grow strong. One becomes tired of 
one’s own faoe by constantly studying the re- 
flection of it; it is sad work to be always count- 
ing the freckles on one’s nose, the lines in one’s 
forehead and the tiny pimples on one’s chin.” 

“ And just so I hate to be looking inside of 
me. I find freckles and wrinkles and pimples 
all over my poor soul.” 

“ But that is not looking up, or looking around 
to find God who moves in our human lives. 
That is self-seeking, not truth seeking Every 
day is an object lesson in your life. He teaches 
us by object lessons as truly as He taught the 
old Jews We are all in His infant class. Eecord 
every answered prayer, every new mercy, every 
new thing you learn about Him and if this 
simple and truthful record of your simple and 
truthful days do not honor Him it will be because 
— what ? ” 

“Because 1 have thought about myself and 
not thought about Him.” 


144 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


“ I am speaking of what I know. I always talk 
to you girls about what I have lived through. 
And perhaps that is why I have lived through 
so much. Try this better plan and see if it will 
not reveal to you the constant care-taking of God.” 

“ It does seem worth while,” said Kebekah, 
thoughtfully. 

“Write your book for your Master as you do 
everything else for Him. He will use it to educate 
you. And write this on the first fair page : ‘ That 
which 1 see not teach Thou me.’ ” 

“ I will,” promised Kebekah. “ I will buy 
the book to-morrow. I don’t want to miss any 
good thing by and by.” 

“It will help you turn the corners,” said Miss 
Southernwood, “twenty -five and thirty and thirty- 
five are hard milestones for some of us.” 

“ I’m on the way to the first corner,” replied 
Kebekah seriously. “I hope I shall have found 
out several things by that time. I would like 
to show girls how happy and useful an ohi 
maid’s life may be, and I’m just as eager to 
show them how beautiful and true and strong 
the life of a wife and mother may be, and 
I’m perplexed how to live both lives,” she added, 
with a little confused laugh. 


M/SS SOUTHERNWOOD. 


145 


She would not have made this confession to 
any one beside Miss Southernwood who always 
understood. 

“ Live one awhile and then the other,” advised 
Miss Southernwood. “Aren’t you glad you must 
not choose for yourself ? ” 

“Yes,” said Kebekah, emphatically; “if I had 
chosen for myself how broken-hearted I should 
be to-night.” 

Slipping from the bed she knelt on the carpet 
beside her friend, and with her head buried 
in her hands, in a broken voice and with 
frequent sobs she told her story. 

“ I am so ashamed, so ashamed ! ” she repeated 
vehemently. “ I want to hide' my face ! I did 
not think God would let such a shameful thing 
happen to me.” 

“ My child, my child,” said Miss Southernwood 
in her sympathetic voice, “ God did let it happen 
to you, and not only for your own sake, but 
for the sake of more than one other. You are 
bearing shame for some one’s sake. God has 
given you the hardest thing to bear; for what 
is harder to bear than shame? Aren’t you glad 
that He chose you to bear so hard a thing ^ 
How much shame He suffered for us! I do 


146 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


not think He could give a young girl a heavier 
cross than this kind of shame. I am sure Dr. 
Prentiss has learned something through you; 
God thought you were willing to be used in 
this way and He has used you. Poor Jennie 
Prentiss has greater shame to bear, and hers 
has come to her through you. For these two 
people God has made use of you. And it may 
be that some day some girl will come to you with 
her story and you will know how to comfort her. 
God’s will is the sweetest comfort. Doesn’t it 
comfort you?” 

“Yes; oh, yes,” sobbed Kebekah. 

“ I might say other things, but I give you 
the surest and best. Oh, the girls that havo 
come to me with their little heart-aches and 
heart-breaks ! Some — most of them — could not 
receive the comfort I have comforted you with, 
and they had to bear their shame.” 

“ But I’m afraid I have brought it upon myself. 
I was pleased because he liked me — it flattered me, 
I suppose, and I did not stop it. Is it God’s will 
when we make mistakes and bring things upon 
ourselves ? ” 

“ It is often God’s will that we shall make mis- 
takes. You have learned to ask wisdom.” 


M/SS SOUTHERNWOOD, 


147 


“ I think T have,” acknowledged Eebekah, em- 
phatically. 

“ And He has taken your mistake into His own 
hand and is making it a blessing. I trust He is 
making it a blessing to the others.” 

“ I do hope so. I don’t feel bitter and hard 
now; but how I did hate him! I was sorry that I 
had to hate him so. It made me ugly. But I 
can’t feel ugly now ; I do believe God knew about it 
all the time and has let me suffer shame.” 

“ He told Peter that he might come to Him on 
the water, and yet He let him begin to sink. We 
do go through shame because of obedience very 
often.” 

“ I wanted to obey ; I thought I might help 
him, he said I could. I wonder how his cousin 
is bearing it to-night.” 

Eebekah arose and slipped as naturally back 
into her restful place on the foot of the bed^as 
though she had not left it. She was not one to 
make a long ado or a long talk about anything. 

“She is a girl of strong character; she thought 
she was better fitted to marry him than any one 
else. She will forgive him even this if he be pen- 
itent. He can be very penitent and she seems to 
believe in his penitence. Her determination ex- 


148 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


ceeds everything; he needs a wife like that. She 
will be his w^l. He always behaves when he can 
be with her. Her letters are not strong enough, 
but her presence seems to be.” 

“ How shameful ! ” exclaimed Kebekah. “ How 
can she trust him ? ” 

“ She does not. Some men need a mother more 
than a wife, and he is one of them. She is mother 
and father in one.” 

“That is not like Christ and the church,” said 
Kebekah. “I love that best.” 

“ She takes the relation of Christ, and he is the 
church ; the church at Laodicea, which was neither 
cold nor hot.” 

“ Then she will spew him out of her mouth,” was 
the quick rejoinder. 

“ He may return to his first love — if such weak- 
ness and selfishness can love at all.” 

“Oh, dear,” sighed Kebekah, “there are hard 
things down here in the kingdom.” 

“ Because those in the kingdom and outside of it 
must mingle until the end. Bek we are not to 
choose our friends outside ; we are to mingle with 
them as Christ did.” 

“I have learned that,” assented Kebekah. “I 
am so glad that I came to you to be helped out of 


MISS SOUTHERNWOOD. 


149 


my tangle. Now I must live through the shame 
and be as good as I can and go on.''' 

The ten o’clock bell sounded and she sprang to 
her feet. 

“ Especially go on,” smiled Miss Southernwood. 
“Are you glad to be under rules again?” 

“ When I can’t be a rule to myself,” she laughed. 
“ I wonder how they are doing at home to-night. 
Now I see my way clear, I feel like going back. 
My restlessness is all gone.” 

Truly she was a child in the kingdom ; she had 
but to know God’s will to do it. Awaking in the 
night she touched Miss Southernwood’s hand, 
saying humbly: 

“ I do hope God will make something out of me, 
but it seems to me as if He hasn’t anything to 
begin with." 

“ He has Himself to begin with,” comforted her 
friend. 

After that, how could she help joyfully falling 
asleep; after that, how could she help joyfully 
going home “to begin all over again”? There 
was no need of her — no special need of her — at 
Kutledge Felix, and oh, how they did need her at 
home ! 

She remained at Kutledge Felix only one week, 


150 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. . 


but the whole house was in a tumult of exhilara- 
tion at her return — perhaps uproar would more 
fully express their boisterous greeting; there 
seemed to be one continuous cry of “ 0 Bek,” for 
the next two days. 

“ You shall not go away again for forty years,” 
her step-father declared. “ Your mother has really 
moped.” 

“Do let me go in twenty,” laughed Kebekah, 
with suffused eyes. 


IX. 

OTHER THINGS. 

“Time is generally the best doctor.”— Ovid. 

She had come home to settle down, this time, she 
recorded in her new journal, and she did “ settle 
down” and go to work with a sense of rest and 
a feeling of having been comforted. The promise 
to them who trust is that they shall not be 
ashamed; she had been so comforted that even 
high-spirited and proud as she acknowledged her- 
self to be, she was not ashamed; the flush that 
touched her eyes and cheeks at every remembrance 
of her faithless friend was the flush of humility 
and not of shame. Before she had been at homo 
three days. Chip brought her a letter from Dr. 
Prentiss — a letter of “explanation,” he termed it. 
He confessed — if such an acknowledgment may 
be called confession — that she had drawn his 
heart away from its rightful allegiance, and that 
he had deliberately broken his long engagement 


152 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


to his cousin for her sweet sake. He did not 
“confess” that twice before he had broken this 
“rightful allegiance” for the “sweet sake” of two 
other girls. He argued his case well, if one can 
argue well in the cause of faithlessness and false- 
hood, ending by seeking to lay siege to the strong- 
hold of her heart: her loyalty to Christ. “Your 
sweet and grave religiousness is one of your 
attractions to me; what would I not be for your 
sake? ” It may have been cruel, for he had written 
in one of his intermittent repentant moods — but 
she had not outgrown the sarcasm of her girlhood, 
and the temptation in the well-rounded sentences 
was too great to be resisted, therefore she printed 
in small capitals upon the head of his first sheet : 

“Copied from the ‘Complete Letter Writer,’ 

UNDER THE CAPTION OF ‘ FrOM A YOUNG MaN WHO HAD 
WEAKLY AND WICKEDLY BROKEN HIS TROTH TO ONE GiRL 
TO ANOTHER WHO HEARTILY DESPISED HIM.’” 

Then she enclosed it and . returned it to the 
writer. 

It was hard upon him, she declared to her 
mother, but he deserved it, and she was glad 
she did it. 

With very grave eyes her mother replied : “ God 
does not despise one penitent word, Bekie. 


OTHER THINGS. 


153 


. “But he isnt penitent,” persisted Bekie; “he 
was trying to work upon my feelings. He would 
write that same letter to another girl about me, 
— mother, he doesn’t know the difference between 
a lie and the truth. And God keeps the people 
who make a lie and love it outside the gates.” 

“ But, Bekie, although he was not a friend 
worth keeping, was it worth while to make him 
an enemy?” 

“ That’s worldly wise,” said Rebekah, seriously. 
“ Oh I do hate deceit so ! Sometimes I’m afraid 
I hate a lie more than I love the truth.” 

The first time she saw him afterward he was 
talking to Gertrude Raymond at Mite Society; 
he acknowledged her presence with an expres- 
sion that was intended to quench her. She 
bowed slightly not feeling at all quenched. It 
was months before they exchanged a greeting 
of any kind. 

She wrote to Miss Southernwood that she had 
given herself back to herself, having set herself 
down in a corner and talked to herself, and now 
she had a heart at leisure from itself to go on 
and keep on. 

Her journal was one of the things that she 
kept on; she wrote on the first blank page over 


154 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


.the motto Miss Southernwood had given her: 
“The Story of my Quiet Life,” and faithfully re- 
corded everything in her life or in the lives of the 
others worth remembering. Every month she 
read it Jiloud to her mother. It ran into volumes 
second, third and fourth before new and pressing 
duties pushed it out of her days. Many things 
that she saw not did the Lord teach her. 

The list in April of this year of things to be 
thankful for was on this wise: 

*‘^April 1. I found something delicious to read 
aloud at the Mission Band. 

“2. The twins did not fret over their music 
lesson; they play half a dozen duets very nicely. 

“3. Something I suggested relieved mother’s 
neuralgia. She looks brighter than she has for 
a month. 

“4. Father listened as if he loved to wliile I 
sang to Bertie to-night. 

“5. Mrs. Dunraven has promised to talk to 
me about my years at Kutledge Felix. 

“6. Floy said it made her happy to stay an 
hour in my sanctum. 

“7. The sermon on ‘Take no Thought’ to-day 
did me ever so much good. 

“ 8. Mother said my mouth was a comfort to her. 


OTHER THINGS. 


155 


“9. Mollie wrote that my experience with Dr. 
P. had taught her something about what girls 
have to do in the world. She said young men 
would be stronger if girls loved strength and 
manliness better. Good for Mollie ! 

“10. The girls like my idea of forming a De- 
bating Society. We shall write essays and read 
them. 

“ 11. I am thankful that I could promise cheer- 
fully when mother asked me if I would consider 
the care of the twins’ wardrobe my special work. 
If I do it, I shall do it. 

“ 12. Chip said when he talks to the boys he 
tries not to say anything that would make me 
sorry. 

“ 13. I do not think about my bad complexion 
any more. 

“ 14. I played in church to-day and did not 
feel nervous. I am thankful they wish me to 
be organist, for now I can be a real hdp in 
church service. 

“15. One of my Sunday-school boys is to join 
the church at next communion. 

“16. Mother has a new carpet in her room. 
Hers was so shabby, and she will not spend a 
cent upon herself 


156 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


“17. Lulu said there must be sunshine in my 
heart, else my face couldn’t keep so bright. 

“ 18. Mr. Dunraven told Dr. Mason that I am 
one of the helpers in the church that he counts 
on. 

“ 19. Father gave me two dollars for postage, 
etc., without asking. 

“20. I am learning to admire Lulu’s pretty 
face without wishing that I looked like her. 

“21. The wrapper I have cut and made for 
mother fits splendidly. 

“22. I am learning to find something every 
day in the Bible to strengthen and cheer me — 
to make it worth while to keep on. 

“23. Miss Southernwood’s letter. 

“24. Mr. Kyerson is at the Parsonage and has 
not tried to find me out. 

“25. Dr. Prentiss said to Mrs. Dunraven that 
I was a ‘girl of principle.’ She told mother. 

“26. I have found some old books: ‘Burke on 
the Sublime and Beautiful’ and ‘Essays of Ma- 
cauley,’ etc. 

“27. I am thankful that Lulu asked me to 
pray aloud every night so she can hear me. It 
was taking up my cross. 

' “28. I am learning not to be sarcastic. 


OTHER THINGS. 


157 


“ 29. In the Debating Club my essay written 
to prove that manner is more taking than dress 
was voted to be best. * 

“30. I am thankful fo'^' the habit of recording 
daily mercies.” 

i 


X. 


THE LONGEST DAY. 

“The mother’s heart is the child’s school-room.’’ — Beechee. 

Kebekah stood at the kitchen table hulling straw- 
berries for tea; it was in one of those June twi- 
lights that her soul delighted in. Afterward she re- 
membered that it was the longest day in the year. 

Bertie was in his high chair at the table crowing 
jubilantly with stained cheeks and sweet scented, 
dimpled fingers. The children called him “ Bek’s 
Baby ” oftener than anything else. “ What is 
your name?” some one had asked him before 
he was fifteen months old, and he had answered 
so promptly and gravely, “ Bek’s Baby,” that the 
name had become a household word. 

“0, Bek,” shouted Nell, the news-teller, rush- 
ing in with an over-brimming pail of white cher- 
ries, “who do you think is married? You’ll never, 
never guess ! ” 

“ I guess it’s you,” hazarded Bek gravely. 


THE LONGEST DAY. 


159 


“Now be sensible and guess,” pouted Nell. 
“It’s two people of our church.” 

“Two ladies or two gentlemen?” queried Bek 
provokingly. 

“ A lady and a gentleman. She is in the choir, 
but he doesn’t come to church very often.” 

“ Nettie Mason ? ” 

“No.” 

“Lou Harris?” 

“No.” 

“Mira Green?” 

“Ab,” laughed Nell. 

“It isn’t Marne Dunraven?’' 

“Ao,” with dancing eyes. 

“Lucy Conover?” 

“No; no, indeed I” energetically. 

“ Who else is in the choir ? Emily True ? ” 

“No; guess again. You’ll never guess. She’s 
been such a stay-aLhome, nobody will think of 
her. Do guess ! There are six more girls in the 
choir.” 

“But they are too young! It isn’t Gertrude 
Eaymond ? ” 

“Oh, no,” mimicked Nell, “it isn’t Gertrude 
Eaymond! But it is\ Miss Gertrude herself! 
Now guess the gentleman.” 


160 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


“I did not know that any gentleman in the 
village waited upon her.” 

“ He isn’t in the village, but he drives through 
it every day ! ” 

“Oh!” 

Bek’s color paled. But how absurd it was to 
think of him I 

“ It’s Dr. Prentiss 1 ” announced Nell, trium- 
phantly. “You would never have guessed. They 
were married early this morning, and have started 
on their wedding tour to — to — Thousand Isles — 
if there are so many anywhere I It sounded like 
that.” 

“Who told you?” asked Bek quietly, pressing 
a big strawberry into Bertie’s mouth. 

“Dr. Mason is telling father at the gate, and 
he said he was sorry for her,” added Nell, myste- 
riously. “I’m sure I don’t why. Do you?” 

“I hope she will never know why,” returned 
Rebekah. “Bertram! Bertram! Look at those 
hands,” she cried bending over him. 

But this was not the reason that to-day seemed 
the longest day in the year. Her mother had not 
felt strong to-day, nor for many days, and she had 
banished her to the nondescript apartment known 
as the Nursery. She was sprinkling powdered 


THE LONGEST DAY. 


161 


sugar over a glass dish of strawberries to take 
up to her when Floy came into the kitchen. 

“ Mamma wants to see you by and by, Bek,” 
she said. “ She is in no hurry, she says eat your 
supper first. Oh, what delicious strawberries ! ” 

“ Eing the bell and call Lulu to take my place, 
and I’ll take mamma’s supper up. Don’t let fa- 
ther wait for me; I don’t want anything to-night.” 

But she did want something to-night. She 
did not know what she wanted. 

Gertrude Kaymond — conscientious, truth-loving 
Gertrude Eaymond, with her decided opinions, 
her strong determination, her cool, stately man- 
ner, her high aims, her outspoken disdain for 
every one who was not perfect in her eyes — to 
do this thing of all things! What error in the 
form of truth had blinded her judgment ! What 
dark angel in the guise of self-denying sanctity 
had hovered over her and lured her on to follow ! 
She must have sacrificed herself to an idea ! She 
had always been looking forward to doing some 
grand thing for truth’s sake I 

Poor Gertrude I Where was her mother, and 
why did she herself not write to Mr. Eyerson ? 
The groan of thankfulness that swelled into her 
heart burst from her lips in an agony of grati- 


162 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER, 


tude. How had been taken care of! She 
went slowly up the broad staircase with her 
tray of biscuits, strawberries and fragrant steam- 
ing tea. The Nursery door stood ajar; she gave 
it a slight push without disturbing her mother. 
There was such a hush about the room that she 
decided that her mother must have fallen asleep. 

Was it years and years since she had stood 
last upon the threshold ? Since she had run laugh- 
ing down stairs at some comical story her mother 
had told her that very afternoon I Gertrude’s bur- 
den seemed to have fallen upon her; but Gertrude 
did not know that it was a burden. Could her 
flutter of hope be utterly without anxiety ? Had 
Mr. Dunraven married her without making it plain 
that his nephew sometimes — drank ? How she 
had shivered when her mother had told her only 
yesterday that this was true! And if she had 
shivered would not Gertrude’s heart break? At 
the last choir meeting Gertrude had whispered 
to her with a little laugh that she had just turned 
the first corner — she was twenty-five. 

And she had turned it sol 

The room was still hushed, the tray was un- 
steady in her hands, the dainty china cup had 
ceased to steam. 


THE LONGEST DAY. 


163 


The picture of that room as she stood upon the 
threshold seemed burned into her brain ; years 
afterward she saw it as it was to-night in the 
twilight. The new rug of her mother’s braiding 
before the open fireplace, the jug with broken 
rim standing in the red fireplace holding ferns 
and daisies, yellow and white daisies, the straw 
matting with its checks of red and yellow, with 
the worn place before the high, old-fashioned 
chest of drawers, the gray wall paper with its 
pink fuchsias and bright green leaves, the chintz 
covered lounge, the chromos and photographs that 
she and the children had hung upon the walls, 
the white muslin curtains crumpled and soiled, 
the breath of the June evening through the slats 
of the closed gray blinds, the square black clock 
on the mantle and the Silent Comforter at the 
head of the narrow white bed with the words: 
“Is ANYTHING TOO HARD FOR THE LoRD ? ” standing 
out clear upon it. But where was her mother? 

The lounge and white bed and little rocker were 
tenantless; she gave the door another push, there 
was a stir somewhere behind it ; her mother was 
rising from her knees with a glorified face. Yes, 
it was glorified; no other word would express its 
radiance. 


164 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


“Mj daughter.” 

“Mother,” said Bek, advancing slowly, feeling 
almost shy. 

“I want to talk to you a little while,” began 
Mrs. Maurice. 

“Sit down in the rocker and taste this perfect 
supper first,” coaxed Kebekah. 

“ It is tempting,” said her mother, seating her- 
self in the rocker with her every-day air; her face 
was radiant still but some of the glory had left it. 

Kebekah placed the tray in her lap and knelt 
beside her on the matting watching her as she 
sipped the tea. 

“Mother, I serve you on my knees,” she said 
playfully, bending her light head to touch her 
mother’s hand with her lips. 

“ Bek, daughter,” said Mrs. Maurice pausing in 
her absent-minded work of eating the straw- 
berries, “ do you love me well enough to love me 
unselfishly ? ” 

“No, ma’am,” responded Bek promptly. 

“There has been a great deal of love in my 
life; I was an only child, my father and mother 
did not die until I had your own father to love 
me and then I had you. And then father be- 
gan to love me and has loved me with all his 


THE LONGEST DAY. 


165 


dear, big, loving heart and I’ve had beside my 
blessed children. They all love me too much.”' 

“Of course we do. Precious; do taste another 
strawberry; I picked out the biggest for you.” 

“ I’ve always had the biggest of everything, I 
think. And now I have another joy; the joy of 
soon going Home where so much more love is.” 

Bek looked uncomprehending, and lifted a 
strawberry to her mother’s lips. 

“I have the joy of leaving all my loved ones 
with you ; they are my legacy to you — Lulu and 
Chip and Nell and Floy and Bek’s Baby.” 

“ Why, mother ! Where are you going ? ” cried 
bewildered Bek. 

“I’m going away for a little while — to rest 
and to work. The Lord thinks I’ve had timo 
enough down here among you all ; He has called 
me and I’ve said, ‘Yes, Lord, as soon as Thou 
art ready for me.’” 

“ifo^Aer.'” cried Bek, with white lips and 
staring, wild eyes, “ you don’t mean that you 
are going to die!'' 

“ We call it that sometimes; but I have eternal 
life, I cannot die; I am going to sleep some day 
pretty soon, and I shall wake up and see the 
Lord’s face.” 


166 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


Bek’s head dropped on her mother’s shoulder; 
her lips and tongue seemed paralyzed. Setting 
the tray that Bek had so carefully prepared 
upon the matting at her side, the mother gathered 
the child in her arms, resting the shining head 
upon her bosom. 

“I have known it so long; I have been pre- 
paring for it, but I could not break it gradually 
to you; 1 have said many things but you would 
not understand. I was brave in the spring, 
I was willing to let you go, but how I prayed 
that you might not stay! I may live all the 
summer, but I do not hope to be with you 
all through the winter. I want to say a few 
things to you now while^I am strong enough, 
and I want you to prepare the children, and 
to help father, poor father! bear it. You have 
never failed me, Bekie, and you will not fail 
me now. Will you, dear?” 

But Kebekah could only sob. 

“I have very little to say; I have been saying 
it all along and living it all along I hope. I 
am not very old — only eighteen years older 
than you, and you are twenty-three — but my 
life seems long, it has been so full. — And about 
Lulu. She is so bright and winning and beautiful 


THE LONGEST DAY. 


167 


that I would be afraid for her had I not given 
her to God. Watch over her like a mother 
and elder sister all in one. Keep her from 
the attentions of light and trifling young men 
— your experience has made you a fitting coun- 
sellor for her; do not let her marry one wlio 
is not a Christian, a thorough Christian ; tell 
her when the time comes of what I am saying 
to-night. There is nothing new to say about 
the others; I think they will all soon love you 
as well as they love me. I have no money to 
leave any of you; I only love you, that is all. 
I have been so happy all my life — my Christian 
life has been so full of joy ever since that clouded 
time. It is full of joy now.” 

Eebekah could not lift her head or speak; 
her sobs had ceased, but she trembled still. 

“I want everything to be joyful to the end; 
we will all be as happy as we can. Everything 
will go on just the same. While you were away 
those two days at the Parsonage last month 
I had an examination and consultation and 
two physicians declare that an operation to 
remove my trouble would be more than they 
dare undertake. I shall live longer as I am. 
Your father is keeping ur for my sake, but it 


168 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


almost killed him. Do you see how white his 
hair has grown ? Bekie, kiss mother, and cover 
her up on the lounge.” 

Eebekah rose mechanically, led her mother to 
the lounge and covered her with the gay lounge 
afghan. 

“ Now go down and see if father has everything 
he wants,” she said faintly. 

Obediently she went downstairs and poured 
the tea; she talked to the children at the table 
and promised to play for them in the evening; 
she entertained Marne Dunraven and Lou Harris 
for an hour, sang her baby to sleep, and then 
went upstairs to bid her mother good-night. 

Mr. Maurice was sitting close to the lounge, 
holding his wife’s hand. Bek stepped in and 
kissed her mother silently, and then went to 
bed in the dark. The dawn was in the sky 
before she closed her eyes to sleep. And then 
came all the duties of the day, with the burden 
of a day that she had never looked forward to. 
It did not seem as if there were much of Heaven 
in the kingdom on the earth to-day. How she 
longed to go with her mother! 

She was so weak and ignorant, how could 
Christ need her on the earth for anything? 


XI. 


FAITH AND LITTLE FAITH. 

“The steps of faith fall on the seeming void and find the 
rock beneath.” — Whittieb. 

Miss Southernwood’s letter brought the first ray 
of light. If Bek needed her, if she could be 
of any service, she would gladly come to her 
and remain through vacation. She flew up to 
the nursery with the open letter and spread it 
before her mother. 

“0, mother,” was all she could cry, with a 
great, choking sob. 

About that time another help came. It came 
through a sermon preached by Mr. Prentiss in 
their little Clovernook church. He had his ser- 
mon also: a face in the choir that had changed 
and flushed at his words, a head that was bent 
eagerly forward, eyes that shyly thanked him as 
he met them for an instant on his way out of 
church. 

“0, Bek,” criei Lulu, impulsively, the first in- 


170 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


stant they were alone. “ I did want to speak to 
him and thank him,. didn’t yon?” 

“No,” said Bek, thoughtfully. “I did not think 
of him; I thought only of what he had said.” 

Impulsive Lulu was silenced. It was only a 
month since she had taken her first communion. 
At the meeting of the session when she had been ex- 
amined for admission to the Church, Mr. Dun- 
raven had asked her, 

“Has any one urged you to come?” 

“Yes,” she answered, her eyes slowly filling, 
“Jesus.” 

“Bek, I didn’t mean — that I thought more of 
him than of what he said,” she said humbly; “but 
it did stir me up so. I’ve been praying so hard for 
mother to get well! And for — other things.” 

“ So have I,” acknowledged Bek. “ I’m afraid 
we haven’t faith enough to ask God to do His will.” 

The words that stirred them so were these: 

“Some call speaking to God continually about 
everything that worries us persevering in prayer. 
It certainly is persevering in something; but the 
question is, Is it prayer? It is written, ‘ And when 
the people complained., it displeased the Lord.’ 
Did you ever think that much of our praying is 


FAITH AND LITTLE FAITH. 


171 


born of faithlessness and persevered in because of 
faithlessness? We are apt to think that it is faith 
only that stirs us up to ask of God. Was it faith 
that brought the trembling little company in the 
ship to the Saviour with the rebuking cry, ‘Carest 
Thou not that we perish?’ It is true that the 
Lord heard them and heeded them ; He awoke from 
His sleep to quiet the storm, but He turned to His 
disciples with the rebuke: ‘0, ye of little faith,’ 
and ‘ Where is your faith ? ’ As though they had 
shown no faith at all. His faith was perfect faith, 
and He had slept instead of crying out to His 

father May not our urgings — our 

untimely urgings for a certain, much desired, seem- 
ing good, degenerate through needless repetition 
into wearisome, worrying complaints? Who 
among us would rush into the presence of a king 
and prefer our request before we had done him 
some sort of homage? And yet I know people 
who cry, ‘ Lord, give me this thing ! ’ before they 
thank Him for His goodness, and before they con- 
fess their sins ‘Our Father know- 

eth what things we have need of before we ask 
Him,’ One has said Who knows His Father’s heart 
towards us, therefor^ our many persuasive plead- 
ings are not necessary to give Him this knowledge 


172 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


of ourselves; our object cannot be to move His 
heart towards us, because He planned all good 
things for us long before we uttered our first cry ; 
it cannot be that we intend to prepare Him to 
shower upon us His prepared good, for is He not 
waiting with His full, full hands stretched out 
towards us? 

“Oh, our hindering prayers! may God forgive 
them I Not three hours ago I heard a patient mo- 
ther say to her child, ^ Ask me, but don’t tease.’ 
‘ Ask., and ye shall receive,’ not tease, worry, fret, 
complain, and ye shall receive. Ask with a heart 
full of faith, full of hope because full of faith, and 
with the sunshiniest face in the world. Anoint 
your head with the oil of gladness before you 
kneel before Him. Good things are promised and 
we have a right to promised things; we have the 
right of those who ask according to His will. Ah, this 
asking according to His will 1 How little we know 
about it ! Yet, last week, when God heard us and 
answered us, we thought we knew all about it. 
Why did He answer if we did not ask in faith ? 
Why did He answer those disciples who had so 
little faith ? Perhaps He did say to us ‘ 0, ye of 
little faith ’ and we were so absorbed in t^ answer 
to our prayer that we did not listen to His voice. 


FAITH AND LITTLE FAITH. 


178 


Oh, how still the soul must be — how untroubled 
the soul must be to hear God’s low voice ! Not 
when we are taken up with ourselves can we hear 
Him speak. We think we ask with importunate 
faith; instead, we may be teasing with importu- 
nate unbelief. 1 say this because I know it in 
myself, and to you all because you know it in your- 
selves. Paul speaks of making request with joy. 
And again ^wiih iliariksgiving make known your 
requests unto God.’ Thank Him, I beseech you, for 
the last good thing before you plead for another ! 
And praise Him for being good Himself as well as 
for giving good things to you. 

“Again, it is only good that is promised, and I 
am assured that grown-up Christians often coax 
for things not good for them, as ignorantly as 
little children do. But faith in God and submis- 
sion to His will, readiness to await His time and 
willingness for the desired good to be withheld 
altogether, have power in themselves to change 
all things into good; so that pleading any ‘desire’ 
does not perplex Him who made the promise to 
give. We, often times, have need to be changed 
very much ourselves if we would not have the 
blessing we are asking for changed in itself. 


174 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


Often times we persuade ourselves — am I the 
only one who must confess it? — that we are 
spreading the matter out before the Lord when 
we are only delighting our care-taking souls by 
planning our plans in His presence, and, because 
of doing that, are assuring ourselves that they 
must succeed. We call this moaning, anxious, 
planning reverie the prayer of faith. God may 
have a name for it that would startle us exceed- 
ingly. Often and often we kneel before Him 
breaking His plain command, ‘Take no thought.’ 
Often and often we go to Him to bewail to-morrow. 
Oh, our selfish, hindering prayers! All for our- 
selves! When do we pray for others? Last Sun- 
day I heard a city pastor say, ‘We pray best for 
ourselves when we pray most for others! Let me 
repeat it with emphasis. And have faith for 
others as well as for yourselves.’ Do not com- 
plain about them nor for them before God. Faith 
and Unbelief are both standing praying; b6th are 
importunate. Faith asks: ‘Show Thy will to me.’ 
Unbelief prays: ‘Grant that in this thing my will 
may be done.’ Faith pleads: ‘ Plan for me.’ Un- 
belief urges: ‘Prosper my plans.’ Faith submits: 
‘Withhold if it please Thee.’ Unbelief groans, 
frets, complains, insists: ‘Give, give, give.’ Faith 


FAITH AND LITTLE FAITH. 


175 


exults: ‘For Christ’s sake.’ Unbelief uses the 
Name above all names as a passport to favor. 
Faith leaves it all in God’s hands. Unbelief pon- 
ders it. plans it, reiterates it mightily before the 
Lord. Faith, sees the heart of God. Unbelief 
can see only its heart’s desire. Faith with her 
clear eyes can see God’s way. Unbelief stumbles 
along in the dark. And yet would you believe 
it? they often use the same words. Often Faith 
is silent while Unbelief is given to ‘much speaking.’ 

“Said your pastor to me last night, ‘Often I 
look up to God. I do not plead at all.’ Unbe- 
lief sometimes ‘receives’ its heart’s desires; the 
children of Israel did and were made lean in 
their souls. Faith, always gives unquestioning, 
submissive, joyful faith to God. Paul did — and 
he went to Rome after his long praying and 
long waiting. Can you find a promise anywhere 
that God will comfort unbelief? That He will 
anywhere help you to cross the bridge before 
you come to it? Faith to ask is only a part 
of faith; — faith to wait as long as God waits is 
persevering iaith; faith to take what God gives, 
when God gives, how God gives, is submissive 
faith. Faith is much, but it is not everything. 
It is not God, it is only one of His means. Do 


176 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


not make too raucli of faith; do not worship it. 
Christ nowhere commands, ‘ Have faith in your 
own faith,’ but He does command; ‘Have faith 
in God.’ 

“ Let us then have faith — it is the gift of God, 
we may have it for the asking — let us have faith 
ill God who never breaks His word, in God who 
never makes haste because His children have 
no faith to wait. I think He does make haste 
when we have faith not to make haste ourselves; 
an angel, you remember, was once caused to fly 
swiftly.” 

In the nursery with their mother on the lounge 
and Miss Southernwood in the rocker beside her 
the girls gave as much of the sermon as they 
could frame into words. 

“I’ve been through it all,” said their mother. 

“ He has, too,” added Miss Southernwood. 

“Now I may thank him,” cried Lulu, “because 
he isn’t a stranger at all.” 

“Only a bachelor dominie so absorbed in his 
work and his sister that he never has married 
and never will. He is a great deal to me, and I 
look up to him as though the fifteen years’ seniori- 
ty were on his black head instead of my white one.” 


FAITH AND LITTLE FAITH. 


177 


“And now, mamma, he’ll come and see you,” 
said Lulu, “and make you almost well with his 
faith and his voice.” 

At that same moment the strange minister and 
his cousin Marne Dunraven were sitting on the 
Parsonage piazza. 

“ ‘ A smile of God thou art,’ ” he quoted, “ that 
has been in my mind ever since I came out of 
church. Who is that young girl with remark- 
able gray eyes? She is made of the stuff that 
womanhood is made of? She is ‘standing with 
reluctant feet,’ just now, but what a woman she 
will make ! ” 

“ We all have remarkable eyes,” answered Miss 
Dunraven, seriously, “and I’m sure we all kept 
our eyes on you. Who told you how girls pray ? ” 

“I pray myself! And women pray as girls 
do and men as women do. I would like to hear 
that girl talk. She is in trouble about something. 
She was in white.” 

“ As if we were not all in white. Didn’t you 
see the rest of us?” 

“Yes. I saw you all and thank you for your 
patient attention.” 

“It may have been Bek Westerly. She’s in 
trouble about her mother.” 


178 


BE ICS FIRST CORNER. 


“I will call to-morrow. I want to see her 
mother. I suspect that I have a message for her 
that I have delayed six years in giving. I never 
thought of it until I started to come east. Have 
you heard Miss Kebekah speak of her old aunt 
who sent her to school ? ” 

“Yes, indeed. How she blesses the old lady! 
She teaches the girls at home herself, — and none 
of them will go away to school. Lulu has Bek’s 
books and Bek says she is doing better than any girl 
she knew there. You ought to see her little poems, 
and Bek’s playing is nothing to hers. Bek is 
correct and thorough, but Lulu has talent. And 
she’s 'so much prettier than Bek. If Bek were 
not as sweet and good as she can be, she’d be 
envious and jealous. Bek is so much older too ; it 
it seems as if precedence in these things should be 
her birthright. It is not that dear little Bek is 
not sensitive or quick to see — it is because she is 
so thoroughly sweet-hearted. Lulu has twice the 
attention from every one that she has alread}^ 
and Lulu isn’t eighteen yet. And Lulu is as un- 
conscious of it as Bek is conscious; she says she 
is the raspberry and Bek is the strawberry. Her 
younger sister’s talent and beauty and social suc- 
cess is Bek’s discipline, for Lulu is and has what 


FAITH AND LITTLE FAITH. 


179 


Bek most cares for! And Lnlu is as sweet and 
spiritual as Bek with it all. I never saw girls to 
whom life meant so much and yet to whom the 
other life meant so much. Lulu’s admiration of 
^Bek is lovely to see. Bek told me about your lec- 
ture-room talk the first time she saw you — and the 
only time until this morning — it has helped her 
wonderfully with the children she says. She has 
forced herself to talk to them and how they do 
talk to her.” 

“ I wonder if I saw Lulu this morning. I 
saw Bek, of course. I wish I had a hundred 
listeners like her. I wish people could see her 
listen; they might become infected. I saw an 
oval face, gray eyes with black brows, cheeks 
tinted, but not rosy, and purplish black hair fall- 
ing over her forehead.” 

“ Lulu, of course. Who else is like my Lulu ? 
You see I have an enthusiasm for her.” 

“It was not Lulu’s beauty that attracted me — 
I should not call her beautiful — it was the soul 
in her eye; if I had recognized that soul in the 
eyes of that deaf old man in front of me, I should 
have planned to call upon him to-morrow. I 
want to see what that soul can say.” 

“She will have enough to say. I wish you 


180 BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 

might see some of her little rhymes; she won’t 
let me call them poems. They are not remark- 
able of course — nobody can be remarkable now- 
adays — but they are thoughtful and sweet.” 

“Does Bek fall into rhyme?” he asked teasingly. 

“I never heard of it. Bek copies Lulu’s into 
her own journal. Lulu is in my Sunday-school 
class, so I know all her heart. I don’t want her 
to be spoiled, and she will be if people find her 
out. She is one of those people that you can’t 
help touching and caressing and saying pretty 
things to. She refuses to go ’away to school, 
and I am very glad. Boarding-school didn’t 
spoil Bek, but it might give Lulu a few airs. 
I want her to stay under Bek’s wing until she 
finds safety in the home of her hubsand. Mr. 
Maurice has lost everything but his farm, people 
say, and Lulu may have to be the one to go 
out and earn money. They can never spare 
Bek.” 

“What could Lulu do?” he inquired interest- 
edly. 

“Teach, I suppose. I hope she won’t rush into 
print. She began to write a book when she was 
twelve years old, she brought it here one evening 
to read to me. She read it to me as easily as 


FAITH AND LITTLE FAITH. 


181 


f am talking to you. It isn’t finished, but she 
wrote several hundred pages.” 

“Was there promise in it?” 

“ The very thinking to do it with nothing out- 
side of herself was a promise in itself. It was 
all imitation, of course, nothing original, hut the 
imitation was perfect. Everybody has forgotten 
it now, and perhaps she has herself. I hope she’ll 
settle down into a pudding-making, stocking- 
darning, child-loving mother I There are people 
enough to write, too many of them, but there are 
not half enough girls to be good mothers.” 

“Is their mother a good mother?” he asked, 
thinking of Bek’s childhood. 

“Yes, she is a lovely mother, but she is a bet- 
ter wife. And I think she feels it.” 

“And the girls will be better mothers than 
wives ? ” he suggested. 

“ Do you know, so often I hear mothers admit that 
they love their children better than they love their 
husbands that it is a rest once in a while to find 
a wife among the mothers. It may be the same 
among the fathers, but the fathers don’t talk to me.” 

“The mothers are hardly wise to do it,” he 
returned. 

“Not wise, but some women are talkers.” 


182 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


“As I have evidence at this present moment,” 
he laughed. 

“ I think it must be because — ” she said thought- 
fully. 

“Because?” he encouraged. 

“Because there are so few husbands who make 
their wives feel how blessed the relation is be- 
tween Christ and the church ! I couldn’t say that 
to any one but you; but you always understand 
how 1 come to say such things. So many women 
are reverent and adoring in their very natures 
that they could not but love best such husbands — 
if it were not for the overpowering mother-love, 
perhaps. Well it’s a puzzle,” she said, laughing 
a little. “ I confess I’ve waded into waters too 
deep for me. Mark Eyerson is one of those men.” 

“ He is a man ! ” exclaimed Mr. Prentiss, enthu- 
siastically. “ He sits on a high stool all day at 
a desk and in the evening teaches music for the 
love of it.” 

“ He needs money badly enough,” interposed 
Miss Dunraven. 

“Too badly for his own peace of mind,” was 
the quick rejoinder. 

“ He is glorious ! Just think of his taking care 
of those three orphan girls instead of letting 


FAITH AND LITTLE FAITH 


183 


some association assist him; patriots ought to 
care for those children, their father lost his life 
fighting for them, and their mother died because 
she couldn’t live without him. The physicians 
said she died because she grieved so broken- 
heartedly. She never went ont into the sunshine 
after that telegram. He has his mother beside, 
for she imll stay with the children, and that self- 
ish sister will not take any of them. He’s all the 
grander in contrast with her. And he’s such 
a real father to them, young man as he is. 
He’s younger than Julius by two or three years. 
Julius isn’t the only one he tries to keep straight. 
He’s the most unselfish human being I ever 
saw. And to think Janet refused him for the 
sake of Julius! I have no words to express my 
indignation. And he bears that and is as full 
of life as ever! Oh dear,” with a comical sigh, 
“how much love some worthless people contrive 
to wheedle out of other people ! He was at 
church and saw Bek and Lulu. He said Bek’s 
face rested him. I think she rests everybody. 
She takes God at His word; that’s all the differ- 
ence between her and other people.” 

“Mark could not marry with those burdens 
upon him,” said Mr. Prentiss. 


184 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


“Not yet, not for ever so long. But Janet 
did not think of that. He is too much like her; 
she wanted to sacrifice herself, I suppose. I’m 
glad people are stopped. Such things are of about 
as much use as burning yourself on your hus- 
band’s body. I know Julius Prentiss. How can 
any woman do for him what the love of God 
hasn’t done ? I hope it isn’t wicked, but it exas- 
perates me to think of women like Janet and Bek 
Westerly and Gertrude Kaymond pining to sac- 
rifice themselves.” 

“They are fascinated, I suppose, as a bird is 
fascinated by a snake; the bird doesn’t want to 
sacrifice itself, only, somehow, it can’t help it. 
I never saw a woman that was willing to sacrifice 
herself to an ugly, disagreeable fellow; they are 
always charming, in some way, and it is the charm 
they yield to, and not the high pressure of their 
own spirituality and spirit of self-sacrifice. Let 
this same man make himself loathsome and the 
woman keeps to him because it is rights not be- 
cause she loves him. Gertrude Prentiss will con- 
fess that to herself some day.” 

“ Beware ! You are robbing woman of her 
saintship.” 

“ The grace of God makes saints, nothing else. 


FAITH AND LITTLE FAITH. 


185 


he replied. “ Only God can bear with the unre- 
pentant human heart; when hearts are like to 
break, sometimes, they open themselves to me. 
The world sees the wife’s devotion; they do not 
see the spring of it. Believe me, it is love to God 
and not love to man that crowns the woman a 
saint.” 

“Well, I know there are saints on the earth in 
unheard of places, doing everyday matters. If 
you want to live on earth with a bit of Heaven to 
brighten it, go and stay awhile with Bek’s mother 
and Miss Southernwood.” 

That same Sunday after Sunday-school Bek 
went across the street from the church to read 
awhile to a blind old lady who had loved her 
father when he was the young pastor in Clover- 
nook. She had a book of Miss Southernwood’s 
this afternoon: “Heaven Anticipated.” 

“ I’m determined to have what I want at any 
cost,” declared a voice sullenly. “ I believe I 
will have it, too.” Bek overheard the remark as 
she stood in the small entry. The sullen voice 
belonged to the blind old lady’s daughter-in- 
law. 

“ Oh, don’t say that ! ” cried a voice. 

The voice was hardly like Gertrude Kaymond’s, 


18G 


BEK’S FIRST CORNER. 


it was SO high and shrill. Bek slipped in as 
though she belonged in the cool, shaded parlor 
and dropped down on a faded hassock at the old 
lady’s feet. 

Mrs. Payson, the daughter-in-law, and Bertie’s old 
nurse, sat by the window with a religious paper 
spread out upon her lap ; Gertrude had risen to go, 
but blind Aunt Comfort’s next words stayed her 
feet; she dropped back into her chair to listen. 

“Surely: people usually do have what they 
seek above all things. It is startling to me as I 
look back over my long life and remember the 
experiences of my friends, to note this fact; they 
have all had their heart’s desire ! ” 

“Why, I didn’t know people could^" said Bek. 

“You here, dearie! I hope you will have yours. 
I more and more assuredly believe, even in' this 
world that we call such a world of disappointment, 
we do have the things we set our hearts upon. 
So, my dear, my dears, all of you. I shall be sur- 
prised if you are exceptions.” 

“Can you say that you have found what you 
wanted most?” asked Gertrude, excitedly. 

“Yes,” was the quiet reply, “the thing that I 
have sought that 1 have found, according to the 
sure word of promise.” 


FAITH AND LITTLE FAITH. 


187 


“It is very encouraging,” said Bek. “I’ll have 
to tell Mollie that.” 

“ So it is I It is very interesting to me to study 
what people are setting their hearts upon, to trace 
the workings of their hearts and to trace God’s 
workings.” 

“Our misleading hearts,” said Gertrude in a 
low voice. 

“We can all have our plan or His, just as we 
choose,” Aunt Comfort added. 

An involuntary exclamation escaped Bek. 

“The only things that we need fight against 
are His merciful hindrances.” 

“Persevering people always find obstacles,” 
resented Mrs. Payson in an argumentative tone. 

Aunt Comfort went on in her low monotone, as 
if she were speaking to herself A footstep on the 
grass under the windows did not disturb her and 
when broad black shoulders and a straw hat 
appeared at the window there were no exclama- 
tions because Mr. Prentiss held up a warning 
finger. To hear Aunt Comfort talk was one of 
his reasons for choosing to spend his vacation 
in Clover nook. 

“ I once knew a lady, handsome and bright,” 
she was saying, “ who seemed to care for nothing 


188 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


but dress; she seemed to care more to be elegantly- 
dressed than she did for anything else in Heaven 
or on earth. And when she was dressed she loas 
a picture! Her little daughter, fresh from that 
great school at Bethlehem, begged permission to 
go to church one Sabbath afternoon, saying that 
she always went to church at school. ‘No, in- 
deed,’ said her mother, sharply, ‘you would be a 
pretty sight when you came out. How all those 
flounces would look after you had sat on them 
and mussed them an hour or two. Take a walk 
if you must go out somewhere.’ This mother died 
not long afterward; she was unconscious for days, 
never dropping one word that her friends care to 
remember. Then her husband spent his evenings 
at home, for the first time for years and years, and 
the little girl looked forward to wearing her 
mother’s diamonds. But she, the mother, had 
had her heart’s desire. She was elegance itself 
even in her coffin.” 

Mr. Prentiss looked at Bek and nodded; he 
approved of Aunt Comfort’s little sermons. 

Mrs. Pay son fidgeted in her chair; Gertrude 
listened with her eyes on the carpet. Was not 
she having her own heart’s desire and nobody 
knew that her heart was burning up. 


FAITH AND LITTLE FAITH. 


180 


“And I knew a Mrs. Bacon once,” the old 
lady remembered; “sAe was a housekeeper ! That’s 
all she seemed to live for. I suppose she did live 
for other things, but this came first. What a 
kitchen she had — so shiny and sweet ! The kinds 
of cake that she could make; and the pounds of 
yellow butter that she sent to market, and the 
cans of fruit in her store-closet ! Why it would 
take some knowledge of arithmetic to count them. 
She never left home on a working day — how 
could she? A match might be wasted, or the 
wrong kind of cake cut. 

“She had a young brother, a young fellow of 
warm heart but weak intellect, who lived with a 
married brother a mile out of the village; he fell 
sick and lingered all through one summer; he sat 
day after day alone and slept night after night 
alone, with no one near to ask if he wanted a 
drink of water. But she kept her boarders, and 
canned her fruit, put down her winter’s butter 
and kept her kitchen shiny and sweet. I be- 
lieve she did call to see him two or three times 
and stay a few minutes when she passed the 
house on her way to market. But he did not ask 
for her after awhile. I suppose he knew about 
the butter pots and the kitchen floor. But two 


190 


BEJCS FIRST CORNER. 


nights before he died, she did leave all and go to 
sit up with him. One of the days was Sunday 
and she could leave then, as she had no churning 
and baking to do. I was there when she came 
in. ‘So you’ve come, at last,’ was all he said. 
But I never saw such a kitchen, and one year 
she canned a hundred and fifty cans of black- 
berries.” 

“Oh, Auntie,” interposed Gertrude, “I’m sure 
you don’t know any more such dreadful things. 
You’ll make us afraid ! ” 

“That’s what I want to do. You remember 
Harry Weeks, I know. A more ambitious student 
never went to college. How proud his father 
was of him ! He coughed and studied, and 
studied and coughed, but he was determined to 
graduate first in his class of forty-four. And 
he did — there’s no doubt about that!- Three days 
afterward his old father took his dead body home. 
There was no failure — Harry had reached his 
standard. Never tell me that some people don’t 
get the thing they want most; if it’s in the world 
they get it.” 

“ But, auntie, everybody don’t want such things 
most,” said Bek ; “ some of us want the best things.” 

“ How many ? I don’t know very many that 


FAITH AND LITTLE FAITH. 


101 


want the best things most. We know we do, 
when God passes us by in the lesser things and 
gives us the very best things. Now Til tell you 
about Bert Heyward how he broke his heart day 
by day about Louise Vernon, and how he wouldn’t 
take a retusal. The night before they were mar- 
ried, her father told him he would regret it all 
his days. And isn’t his life a wreck? He would 
have said that God was cruel, if he could not 
have married her, perhaps, and have taken to 
drink — and what now is his success ! What a 
home he has, and what a wife ! Yes, my dears, 
all we have to do is to try hard enough, fight 
against God’s will long enough, and we shall have 
the thing we like best. Fight against his merci- 
ful hindrances as girls do when mother and father 
are not pleased with the young man of their choice 
— as young men do when the girl says no — fight, 
fight, fight and get it ! And oh, the leanness that 
comes into — that is sent into — the soul. Gyd gave 
the Israelites theirrequestand then sent the leanness.” 

Bek lifted her eyes and then turned away from 
the despair in Gertrude’s face. So soon, Bek 
thought. Mr. Prentiss was rubbing his finger 
over the rotten window-sill and was not looking 
at anybody. 


192 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


“ ‘ Delight thyself in the Lord,’ ” quoted Aunt 
Comfort, “you all know the rest, ‘and He shall 
give thee the desires of thy heart.’ Isn’t that a 
thousand times better than fighting along and 
having your desire as God gave a king to Israel 
in His anger — ” 

“But, mother,” interrupted Mrs. Payson, “think 
how many things you have prayed for, and yet 
you have gone without.” 

‘But I haven’t wanted them most of all.” 

What have you wanted most of all? Long 
widowhood, loss of children and a feeble old 
age?” 

The old lady answered sweetly, 

“I have wanted most of all and prayed most of 
all that God’s will might be done in me and I 
thank Him to-day for giving me my heart’s strong- 
est desire.” 

“I can’t attain to that,” said Gertrude, “and 
now I jnust go. I didn’t come here to be so re- 
buked, Auntie.” 

“ I’m glad if you are,” said Aunt Comfort. 
“Who is that outside the window? Somebody 
else listening to my old stories. Is it somebody 
who can pray, ‘Give me not my heart’s desire 
until I delight in Thee ? ’ ” 


FAITH AND LITTLE FAITH. 


193 


“Yes, auntie, I hope it is,” said Mr. Prentiss, 
“and now I am coming in to see you.” 

Bek laid the little book on Aunt Comfort’s lap 
and slipped out as easily as she had slipped in. 
She never knew what Mrs. Payson was “ deter- 
mined to have at any cost”; she knew what 
Gertrude had and at what cost; she knew the 
“ merciful hindrances ” that she had not fought 
against, and she went out into the August sun- 
shine with a glad step and a heart that sang all 
the way home. 

Gertrude went home to shut herself up and 
moan with tearless eyes with the open Bible in 
her lap; Bek went home to sit by her mother’s 
lounge and read a long chapter to her in a book 
they both learned to love in these days — Baxter’s 
“ Saints’ Rest.” The yellow leaved, green covered, 
little book ! What a comfort it was ! what a rest 
it was! 

Mr. Prentiss had promised to call to-morrow, 
and they all remembered it. 


XII. 


WOKKEES AND SHIEKEES. 

“ Our best doing is our best enjoyment.” — Jacobi. 

To-morrow was a busy day. When Bek was not 
under her mother’s inspection her eyes began to 
wear a careworn look; she was beginning to be 
a real mother in the household. Even Bertie had 
learned not to “ trouble mamma,” but to run to 
Bek in every little perplexity. Bek had a naughty 
way of holding up the heavy end, Miss Southern- 
wood said, and scolded her for it, but Bek smiled 
a little sadly and insisted that she did not know 
how to do any better. 

“ You want to make the girls useless and help- 
less,” Miss Southernwood said severely, “you are 
keeping them from being self-reliant.” And then 
Bek looked grave and thought she must learn 
how to do better. There was kitchen work to 
do this morning, because Pauline was washing; 
Bek would not have school broken in upon, and 


IVORJ^ERS AND SHIRKERS. 


195 


had sent Lulu to the piano and the twins to 
the school-roorn before dinner was in prepara- 
tion. It was nearly eleven before the burn on 
Bertie’s finger was attended to and the Lima 
beans shelled, and then she ran up to the school- 
room to give the twins the history and geogra- 
phy hour and sent Lulu down to take care of 
the dinner and ring the dinner bell precisely at 
half past twelve. 

The school-room was in the third story, under 
the eaves, the checkered sunshine on the bare 
floor was its only carpet, the two windows were 
curtained with the skirts of the twins’ last sum- 
mer’s white dresses, Bek’s chair was a straight 
backed arm-chair with a rush bottom; the twins 
each owned a stool, while Lulu had the com- 
fortable habit of curling up on the floor under 
the window. Books, papers and a writing-desk 
or two tried to keep themselves in order on the 
square, pine table, while Bertie’s playthings gave 
the air of a kindergarten to the garret school- 
room. In winter this housetop nook would be 
too cool; but rone of them planned for winter; 
the twins because they did not look into the 
future and Bek and Lulu because they did. 

“ What a queer old lady 1 ” exclaimed Mrs. 


196 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


Maurice in a lively voice, while geography and 
history were in a state of enthusiasm overhead. 

“ She was eccentric,” returned Mr. Prentiss. 

The breath of the August morning stirred the 
white muslin curtains of the nursery; summer 
was everywhere through the wide, breezy room. 
Mrs. Maurice was sitting in her spring rocker 
at the window, with some white work for Bertie 
upon her lap. How tenderly these last stitches 
were being taken ! How many prayers for the 
baby’s future were being stitched in ! Mr. Pren- 
tiss in linen duster and with his straw hat upon 
his knees was sitting beside her. These two had 
needed no introduction: “You are one of the 
people that I have always known,” she had said 
when he apologized for what might seem like 
intrusion. 

“Mrs. Howe asked me not to tell you about 
the money until I deemed it prudent. 1 deem 
it prudent now. She loved Rebekah, she had 
loved her father. ‘ I want the girl to learn 
money’s worth before she has money,’ she re- 
peated again and again. ‘I want her to be a 
faithful steward.’ She would have made thirty- 
five the condition of receiving it but I persuaded 
her to make it twenty-hve. ‘She will be wise 


WORKERS AND SHIRKERS. 


197 


and mature at twenty-five,’ I urged. ‘She will 
be married by that time or be wise enough to 
make a wise choice.’ If she marry a spend- 
thrift or one given to dissipation of any sort, 
the money is to go in another direction. I be- 
lieve the old lady would have enjoyed making 
celibacy a condition, but I frowned upon that, 
celibate as I am. And she would have liked 
to describe the future sharer of her legacy, but 
I laughed her out of it. ‘Do give the girl credit 
for common sense,’ I said, ‘and if she be like 
other women she would rather have her own 
choice than ten times your ten thousand.’ ” 

“True of Bek emphatically,” returned Bek’s 
mother. 

“ I hope this may set your mind at rest con- 
cerning her temporal future — she will have com- 
pound interest, it will be rather a pretty little 
sum by the time she is ready to use it; she 
will have enough to work with or enough to 
rest with.” 

“And she will not forget the children,” said 
the mother-heart. “ I shall have to leave a re- 
quest with you that she will spend a part of 
it for her own comfort. Bek’s future was on 
my mind, 1 confess; Mr. Maurice has been losing 


198 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


money and he naturally will take more thought 
for the others. The future is long, as the prov- 
erb says, and she may have only herself to de- 
pend on. She deserves it, Mr. Prentiss, she is 
a little bundle of unselfishness.” 

“1 can easily see that,” he answered, pulling 
the petals off one of the daisies that Bertie had 
brought to his mother. 

A light step on the stairs and a glad voice 
at the door announced Lulu. 

“ Pm so glad you have come,” she said frankly, 
“I know you will do mamma good.” 

“I wish I might,” he answered earnestly as 
his eyes rested upon the fever flushed face and 
weary hands. 

“ He has done me good. Lulu,” her mother 
said smiling as she leaned back and folded her 
hands, “he has given me something greatly to 
be thankful for.” 

Miss Southernwood entered after a few mo- 
ments and Bek came in her neat gray muslin 
with her tender, watchful eyes and housewifely 
air. The talk was not merry, it could not be 
that with Bek’s eyes so intent upon every move- 
ment of her mother and with the weary figure 
before them in the spring rocker. 


WORKERS AND SHIRKERS. 


199 


“ I haven’t heard from Janet this long while,” 
exclaimed Miss Southernwood. 

“ Of course you haven’t. Nobody has. Don’t 
you know what she is doing? She is studying 
in the Training School for Nurses and expects 
to give her life up to the work of nursing among 
the poor. Her step and hands and voice and 
eyes were made for such service and she is a 
spring of hopefulness.” 

“ The blessed child ! ” ejaculated Miss Southern- 
wood in a moved voice as her eyes met Bek’s. 

“She is a Christian worker,” said Mr. Prentiss, 
“ but I own that I was surprised when she came 
to me with her decision. She hesitated between 
New York and China for some time, and finally 
decided upon New York. ‘ I’ve shirked long 
enough,’ she said in her characteristic way, ‘and 
now I’m going to work. I’ve worked contrary 
to my own prayers long enough; I haven’t even 
tried to do His will on earth as it is done in 
Heaven.’ ” 

“Oh, is she thinking about that, too?” cried 
Lulu. “Bek and I talk about it.” 

‘‘‘Talk about it!” smiled Bek. 

“And Bek does it,” concluded Lulu. 

“She put the question in this way: ‘Shall I 


200 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


leave off praying, or leave off shirking?’ And 
forthwith started for New York. I couldn’t spaie 
niy housekeeper and helper in church work, but 
I had to.” 

“ What shall you do without her ? ” questioned 
Miss Southernwood. “ If it were not for Bek 
and for Kutledge Felix, I’d go home with you 
and take up some of her work.” 

“I only wish you would! The ones that cannot 
be spared are just the ones to go on such missions.” 

“ Anybody can be wives and sisters,” said 
Lulu, oracularly, “but anybody can’t be a per- 
fect nurse.” 

“ I don’t want anybody for a wife or sister,” 
he retorted. “I want somebody that can’t be 
spared from some mission.” 

“I should have chosen China,” returned Lulu. 
“Mother, you would like that for me, wouldn’t 
you?” she asked anxiously caressing her mo- 
ther’s pale hands. 

“ Yes, dear, if God sent you.” 

“Saints and angels love their work because 
it is of God’s ordaining; their work is glorious 
and grand, but we people without a vocation 
have only odds and ends of work to do,” Lulu 
answered dolefully. 


WOHITERS AND SHIRKERS. 


201 


“ Odds and ends,” exclaimed Miss Southernwood, 
indignantly. “ God does not have any ‘ odds and 
ends’ in His plan of work; little things are not 
set aside to be done at any time.” 

“ But I do wish I might do angels’ work,” 
confessed Lulu, “ earthly work gets rather dry 
and uninteresting.” 

“ When an angel is sent down to work on 
earth what kind of work is he doing ? ” questioned 
Mr. Prentiss. 

“But they are sent on glorious errands !” cried 
Lulu, enthusiastically, “just think of coming to 
Christ in the Garden ! And of coming to Zacharias 
with the good news about John the Baptist.” 

“And of coming to Elijah with the cruse of 
water and even baking a cake upon the coals 
for him. And awaking him out of his sleep 
to eat and drink. Commonplace, wasn’t it? 
Just as commonplace as for you to pick rasp- 
berries for the Parsonage. Don’t you believe 
that this messenger came as cheerily to the tired, 
discouraged old prophet asleep under a tree to 
bring him water and bake him a cake as the 
angel that came to Zacharias when he was 
engaged in the temple service; that one brought 
water with as much zeal as the other brought 


202 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


the glad news of the coming of the Forerunner 
of Christ.” 

“ ril think of that when I help in the baking/ 
laughed Lulu. “ I suppose it was excellent, not 
sour nor heavy cake, and the water was cool 
and fresh. Perhaps, Mr. Prentiss, that it was 
the same angel,” she added, her eyes glowing 
with the new thought. 

“John the Baptist came in the spirit and 
power of Elias,” suggested Miss Southernwood. 

“ If it were the same, no doubt he was as will- 
ing to give one service as the other. Before 
honor is humility even in the upper kingdom.” 

“ I thought I couldn’t be like the angels unless 
I talked about holy things to people,” acknowl- 
edged Lulu, “and I do not know how, even Bek 
doesn’t know how as well as Miss Dunraven, 
but now I’ll make currant jelly for old Mrs. Ives 
and take a Graham loaf to bedridden Miss Word 
and maybe that will be accepted. I’m only a 
girl, I don’t know how to pray with them and 
talk to them. That angel was satisfied to speak 
to Elijah only to wake him up.” 

“They spoke when God gave them messages,” 
said Mr. Prentiss, “sometimes we are a message 
in being only ourselves.” 


WORKERS AND SHIRKERS. 


203 


“This reminds me of a letter 1 promised to 
write for Miss Word; she has a married sister 
out west and would like it if I’d write every 
two days. But she has such queer things to 
say that it’s poky work and I don’t like it.” 

“ As the angel said that was sent to write 
upon the wall of the king’s palace,” commented 
Mr. Prentiss very gravely. 

“ I’ll do it this very afternoon,” promised Lulu, 
solemnly, “just imagine — but we can’t — a fretful, 
envious, wilful, discouraged angel", shirking God’s 
work and doing something to please himself 
instead. I had planned to go after ferns with 
the twins this afternoon.” 

“ Perhaps saints and angels do not have plans 
of their own,” said Bek. 

She had been too deeply interested to speak 
before. 

“Why not?” interposed Mrs. Maurice^ quickly. 
“ Perhaps they ask to do certain things down here 
on the earth. It would be none the less God’s 
errand that it was an answered prayer.” 

Bek’s eyes were flooded with tender light. 
,Was her mother thinking of that ? 

“Now you mean me!” said Lulu, seriously; 
“ once I did pray that I might get money enough 


204 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


to send somebody to the seashore — Anna Leport, 
Bek — and when afterward her mother asked me 
if I’d come often and amnse Anna while she 
swung in the hammock, in the back yard, I 
rebelled and didn’t want to. I didn’t go cheer- 
fully at all, at first.” 

“ What a queer angel ! ” exclaimed Mr. Prentiss. 
And then, in a reverent tone, “In Heaven His 
will is* done instantly, submissively, rejoicingly, 
unquestioningly. The angels are ministers of 
His that do His pleasure. What a perfect defi- 
nition that would be of perfect Christian workers.” 

Lulu looked troubled. “The angels cannot wish 
to do anything but God’s will, and we do like to 
do ever so many other things!” 

“ Not if we renounce our own will, keeping 
nothing back,” replied her mother. 

“Then that’s the first thing to do,” assented 
Lulu, “and the first thing is the hardest.” 

“That petition in the Lord’s prayer touches 
every thought of our hearts, every work of our 
hands,” said Mr. Prentiss. 

“And angels don’t shirk,” said Lulu, emphat- 
ically, “Michael doesn’t say: Where is Gabriel? 
Lord, let him do this.” 

Bek smiled; it was like Lulu to ask, “Oh, 


WORKERS AND SHIRKERS. 


205 


where’s Bek ? ” This talk was but the prelude to 
many another, sometimes it was on the front pi- 
azza, sometimes in the shaded, grassy back yard, 
sometimes sauntering up the lane or seated among 
the mosses and dried leaves in the deep woods; 
wherever it chanced to be it was always of 
thoughts that kept close to their hearts. 

The twins accompanied them upon their ram- 
bles and entered into their lighter moods, but 
the more earnest talks were usually in the nurs- 
ery, or out on the piazza when Mrs. Maurice was 
strong enough to come downstairs. 

Mr. Prentiss’ month’s vacation was a time they 
all delighted to look back upon. Miss Southern- 
wood and Mrs. Maurice seemed to enjoy it as 
thoroughly as the girls. 

One evening they were talking about forgive- 
ness when Bek slipped away and returned pre- 
sently with a sheet of note paper, placing it in 
Mr. Prentiss’ hand she said simply, “ Lulu wrote 
it and it helps me.” 

■“ Bek is always saying that I help her,” declared 
Lulu. “ I think she must be very easily helped.” 

Lulu did not even flush as Mr. Prentiss carefully 
read her little rhyme. She would have shown 
him anything that she had written, or played for 


206 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


him any simple thing that she had composed 
with the same simplicity that Bertie brought him 
the blades of grass that he delighted in plucking. 
She was not at all “ grown up ” to him. She was 
afraid she never would be. It was one of her 
darling dreams that he should come some dis- 
tant day and marry Bek. These two, the sweet- 
hearted daughter and sister at home, and the 
earnest, practical preacher, the minister of the 
Lord that did His pleasure, were her ideal man 
and woman. How Bek could help him and what 
strength and comfort he would be to her! It is 
not strange that the mother, on the borderland, 
so near leaving the daughter who had no fatlier, 
should have thought of such a blessed future for 
her, as well. And Bek? He was too sacred in 
her eyes for her to dare think of such a thing. 
Beside — there were the children. There would 
always be the children even to the days of her 
old age. 

Lulu did watch his face as he read and she 
flushed with pleasure when he asked if he might 
keep it. 

“I’ll read it to my little folks at home,” he said. 

She wrote it for the twins one day after Chip 
had been playing one of his pranks upon them. 


WORKERS AND SHIRKERS. 


207 


“ Mamma had come to say good night 
And take the lamp away, 

For three pairs of feet were tired 
With tramping the fields all day; 

And three little hearts were aching, 

For Bert, in the spirit of fun, 

Had hidden away their dinner. 

And left them to wander alone. 

“ But tearful, now, and repentant. 

He had sent mamma to say, 

That he wished they would forgive him, 

When she took the lamp away. 

Bess, cuddled down in her pillow, 

Promised she would, ‘ But then. 

He mustn’t ever ask me, 

To play with him again.’ 

“ ‘ And you, my little daughter,’ 

Coaxed mamma of sleepy Marne, 

‘ Oh, yes. I’ll forget, and forgive him, 

And love him just the same.’ 

But Amy had been praying: 

‘ As I forgive my debtor.’ 

‘ No:4namma, I’ll remember it, 

And love him all the heller. ’ ” 

Mr. Prentiss came to say farewell the next morn- 
ing. It would probably be a year before he came 
again, he told Miss Southernwood. 

“Then you have something to come for?’’ she 


208 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


asked with playful earnestness, resting her hand 
on her boy’s shoulders. 

“Yes,” he said solemnly, “but I am not sure 
that I shall get it by coming for it.” 

“ ‘ Prayer and pains,’ ” she quoted. 

“ It will not be from lack of either,” he returned 
in a low tone, as a girl’s light step approached them. 

An hour later Bek was writing to Mollie in her 
own room, the door opening into the nursery stood 
ajar. She had shaken hands with Mr. Prentiss in 
the hall and taken him into the nursery for a last 
talk with her mother. The low murmur of their 
voices reached her without disturbing her; she was 
giving Mollie a part of his last sermon and had 
lost all consciousness of his nearness to herself un- 
til her name in his voice arrested mind and pen. 

“ A sacred trust — come again — watch faithfully 
— precious — years — your heart at rest — ” and then 
“Bek” from his lips once more and a low reply 
from her mother. 

Her pen dropped from nerveless fingers. Did 
coming again mean — that ? Was-she so “ precious” 
in his eyes? Was there something so good, so 
good for her ? After all, when she had not been 
good! 

Her head drooped low, her heart was too full to 


WORKERS AND SHIRKERS. 


209 


speak one word. Something good was coming to 
her, he was promising her mother, and he had the 
care of it; her mother’s voice sounded glad, how 
could she help being glad, so glad too? What 
else could it be but — that? 

“Would it be well for Miss Southernwood to 
know ? ” her mother was asking, “ she will be with 
her—” 

Bek arose softly and went out into the hall. 
When Lulu called her to say good-bye to Mr. 
Prentiss she was not to be found. Was it “too 
good to be true?” Were any of God’s blessings 
too good to be true ? 


PAST, PEESENT, AND FUTUEE. 


“ Stody the past if you would divine the future.” — Confucius. 

In the thicket across the fields a dove was moan- 
ing; the plaint had sounded in Bek’s ears before 
her eyes were awake that morning. At intervals 
every day during the last weeks the mournful 
notes had floated over the fields. It was the only 
thing that was not lovely to Bek all this lovely 
summer time. 

“ How sweet that sound is,” her mother had 
said more than once. 

If it had not been for that Bek thought she 
would have been impelled to rush wildly away 
from it. Lulu flew in one morning — Lulu was 
always flying in — exclaiming that she had dis- 
covered the doves; one had flown to a tree down 
by the spring and called and called until its mate 
had answered the call. 

“ Sometimes I long for wings like a dove that 


PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. 


211 


I may fly away and be at rest,” said her mother; 
“ next summer if the doves come again, think how 
glad I was to fly away.” 

This morning that the moan of the doves 
awakened her ushered in one of her days to be 
remembered. It almost seemed as if every one 
of these days were days to be especially remem- 
bered. But this day it was as if her mother gave 
her a white stone; she gave her a glimpse into 
her heart and therefore into the secret workings 
of her life. These last days were bringing her 
marvelously out of herself. Perhaps for Bek’s 
sake she should have brought herself out of her 
self long ago ; but God’s light hand upon her had 
not done this, and because His light hand had 
not done it He had laid upon her His heavy 
hand. 

If there is anything within us worth bringing 
out be sure that God will bring it out. Sometimes 
he lurings it out. 

Day-lilies were scattered in the nursery in care- 
less, fragrant fashion, the locusts were abroad, 
midsummer had come. 

Yesterday, while Miss Southernwood and Lulu 
had stayed with her mother, Bek had worked at 
the sewing-machine in the back hall, but this morn- 


212 


BEK\^ FIRST CORNER. 


ing, the machine work being finished, she had 
brought her work, white dresses for the twins, 
up to the nursery. They all loved the wide, 
airy chamber; Miss Southernwood said that it was 
like the upper chamber where Jesus came to His 
disciples. The name of it was certainly Peace. 

She was working busily and a stranger who 
did not understand the sudden luminous leap 
into the eyes or the tremble about the lips when 
her words were lightest might have thought 
she was working cheerily. She did work cheerily 
as they work who hear the Lord say, “It is I, 
be not afraid.” All the conversation was con- 
cerning to-day — all of it, unless her mother 
alluded to her future, to the future of them 
all; none of Bek’s spoken plans touched to-mor- 
row; she dared not trust herself to think of 
next winter, she hardly dared trust herself to 
think of next month. There would be no dreadful 
to-morrow in the kingdom up above ; perhaps there 
was no dreadful to-morrow in the kingdom here 
below — Miss Southernwood told her there was 
not; but Bek’s aching human heart was not yet 
filled with perfect faith. 

“ Honolulu ! Honolulu ! ” cried Chip through 
the halls. 


FAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. 


213 


He insisted that he called Lulu this “ for long.” 
His mother smiled as the teasing, boyish voice 
rang through the house. Children’s noises never 
disturbed her quiet, she would not have her chil- 
dren hushed and saddened by any burden of her 
suffering. 

“You wouldn’t know there was any one sick 
in the house,” declared one of the neighbors. 
“I like to see some difference when death is 
so near.” 

But the “ some difference ” was in all their 
hearts, in all their prayers, and in the faces that 
hid themselves in the pillows when it was dark 
in the night. Other noises disturbed her quiet, 
however; the sound of her husband’s voice in 
ill-humor, or in fault-finding with the children 
or with faithful Pauline; queerly enough, he never 
spoke impatiently to Bek. Perhaps he remembered 
the promise he had made to Bek’s mother before 
she consented to become his wife. 

“ Promise me, in the presence of God, that you 
will never speak one unkind word to my child.” 

Bek would have loved her mother with even 
more perfect tenderness had she known of this 
thought for her, — little four year old. His latest 
trial — his wife’s hopeless illness — seemed to be 


214 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


developing all the inherent hardness of his nature. 
The neighbors called him “ close ” and “ hard.” 
Bek had not yet learned it; she had known him 
only in the sunshine of his prosperity. His wife 
was beginning to understand into what he might 
develop in the shadow. 

“I am not a blessed trial to him,” she had 
moaned to herself in the silence of the night. 
It was not physical pain only that gave haggard- 
ness to her face in the light of the morning. 
“Must 1 die before God answers nly prayers for 
him?” she cried again and again in agony that 
could not be controlled. The prayer of twenty 
years ! And he was still the same, moral and up- 
right, as far as she knew, but still prayerless, still 
in secret rebellion against the will of God. 

The soft cooing of the dove came to them 
across the field from the green slope down by 
the spring. One tear and then another dropped 
on the fiufiy white mass in Bek’s lap. If God 
would only let her mother stay a little longer — 
a little longer, until Lulu was really grown up 
and Chip in business, the twins married and 
Bertie — but when would she be willing? The 
solemn answer came: “When God makes me so! 
And He can make me willing to-day as well as 


FAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE, 


215 


any other time.” The other time was not His 
time, and this time was His time. When would 
she not plead a “little longer”? 

“Mo-ther,” she said, abruptly, dropping her 
work from her hands, “were you willing at 
first ? ” 

“ ‘ At first ’ was years ago — before the twins 
were born. I feel as if God had been giving me 
year after year. I have never told you, have I? 
0, my child, there have been so many things 
I have never told you ! 0, why haven’t I been 

a talking mother. Bek, if you ever have daugh- 
ters, talk to them, no matter how hard it is, say 
to them every thing you have to say. Will 
you ? ” 

“ Yes,” promised Bek solemnly, remembering how 
she used to wish that her mother would talk to her 
about the Lord and help her to love Him, how 
she used to long to feel enough at home with 
her to tell her — everything. How she had cried 
once because she did not know what to do and 
had no one to ask ! Lulu and the twins came 
to her with their questionings as she had never 
come to her mother. If her mother had been 
a talking mother she would never have given 
even the shadow of a promise to Dr. Prentiss. 


216 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER, 


Her mother’s warning had come almost too late, 
as it was. 

“ I do not know any subject that it is wise for 
a daughter to know about that a wise mother 
may not speak plainly and judiciously about — 
but it was hard for me. I have not been a faith- 
ful mother and my children are better than 1 
deserve.” 

“ Now, mother,” protested Bek, smiling through 
lier tears, “you have loved us dearly.” 

“Yes, and that’s all I’ve done.” 

“ What about at first — so long ago?” asked Bek, 
distressed at her mother’s contrition. 

“How old are the twins? It was while Chip 
was little — you were i;oo young to know about it 
— I had a tumor — or cancer — removed, and the 
physicians said I would have another and die! 
So I have been praying that it might not come 
year after year — and it has been coming. Dr. 
Hayes consulted with two eminent surgeons in 
New York last week concerning my trouble, and 
they decided that an operation might be performed 
and that I had one chance in one hundred to live 
— even now weakened as I am. I was willing 
to take that one chance for all your sakes, but your 
father said I was mad, and would not consent. 


FAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. 


217 


I had a cousin who died in half an hour after an 
internal tumor was removed. Your father will 
not let me,” she repeated. “ I would do it for 
your sakes. God might bless the skill He has 
given.” 

“ I am not willing,” said Bek firmly, “ we have 
you and we will keep you as long as we can.” 

Lulu ran downstairs to chase Chip and box his 
ears, Bertie stumbled up the stairs with a handful 
of big blackberries, Nell and Floy ran in to see 
how their dresses were progressing, Pauline came 
up to show Mrs. Maurice the large, golden roll 
of butter that was to be sent to the Parsonage, 
Miss Southernwood entered with her bonnet on 
to take the message that Mrs. Maurice wished to 
send to Mrs. Ireton who was ill, and then after 
the pleasant bustle and the pleasant little talks 
Bek and her mother were again left alone. 

“ Girls love to look ahead, I used to,” said her 
mother; “there is so much for girls to look for- 
ward to : possible wifehood and motherhood, and 
certainly hard work and good times. It is all 
delightful ; my life has been full of happiness, with 
not half the sorrows that some have, but I do not 
want to live it over again. I have had enough 
of life. I would rather go home to my Father 


218 


BEK’S FIRST CORNER. 


than to take all yonr chances of happiness down 
here. My life has been a hidden life, there has 
been so much more in it than the eye has seen. 
There will be in your life, too. A life hid loiih 
Christ. If it were not for your father I’d be so 
content; but he grows bitter and hard, he rebels 
against God’s will. Sometimes I think there is 
something preying on his mind, some new trouble 
— he has no money to lose, he has lost all his 
earnings and savings in those wild speculations, 
but he would not listen to me — he said I was a 
woman and did not understand business, which 
was true. Bek,” her voice sinking and her lips 
quivering, “ I would not tell you, I could not 
speak so of my husband if I were not going 
away to leave him and I want you to know, so 
that you may help him — but. Dr. Hayes advised 
it because he had dyspepsia, and because he need- 
ed a tonic, and he has taken it since every day, 
and oftener, and sometimes to make him sleep, 
and that is why he finds so much fault with Chip 
— he is excited and doesn’t mean all he says — I 
want you to watch over him and keep him — he 
does not know how to bear trouble, he does not 
pray, and I’m afraid he will fly to that for relief 
when he — misses me.” 


PAS7\ PRESENT, AND FUTURE. 


219 


Bek was already sobbing with her face in her 
hands, but her mother’s eyes were tearless and 
her voice even. 

“Promise, Bek.” 

“Yes,” sobbed Bek. Oh, how many things she 
was promising. 

“ Another thing — ” the quiet, even tone became 
rapid and intense, “remember there’s no safeguard 
in marriage unless you marry a Christian — a real, 
living Christian.” 

“Why, mother,” cried Bek, in surprise. 

“ I know you are surprised. Your father is as 
kind and loving as the day is long — but I know 
what 1 miss. 1 have missed it all these years and, 
I miss it so now that I must be getting ready to 
die. Sometimes I think if your own father could 
kneel down and pray with me, my heart would 
burst with joy. I think over those times and cry 
like a baby. Your father found me crying about 
it and insisted that I should tell him what my 
tears were about. And when I told him, the great 
tears rolled down his cheeks. We haven’t been 
together in the best things. We haven’t lived one 
life. My own life, spiritual life, has been clogged 
and hindered; we have not been heirs together 
of the grace of life. 0, Bek, don’t you do so ! ” 


220 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER 


“Mother, what made you?” asked Bek, seri- 
ously. 

“Because I was so lonely and James Maurice 
loved me.” 

“You had we,” said Bek, tenderly, not reproach- 
fully. 

“Yes, I had you, a toddling baby, but I wanted 
some one to love me and be sorry for me. It 
looked so long before you would grow up. I 
knew he did not attend church regularly, I knew 
he drank moderately as often as he felt inclined, 
I knew that he only listened to me because he 
loved me and not because he loved what I said; 
but he said he would do anything I wanted him 
to do and I believed him. There was no one to 
help me take care of you — I didn’t know how to 
support myself and take care of you — I thought 
of Aunt Kebekah, but I supposed she had given 
your father all she had to spare, and I felt that 
I had no claim upon her. I did not know that she 
married a rich widower without children.” 

“Why! Bid she? Then she didn’t give me 
all her money. I thought she did. I wonder 
what she did with the rest.” 

“I knew he would be kind to you, and you 
would have a home to grow up in,” her mother 


FAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. 


221 


continued evasively. “I see now that I made 
a mistake — my motives were not pure, I was 
altogether selfish. None but the very purest mo- 
tives must influence a girl when she chooses to 
marry.” 

“ I believe that,” said Bek emphatically, with 
some embarrassment. 

“ I have been happier than I deserve ; your 
father has been so good to me. I am not re- 
flecting upon him, I am confessing my own weak- 
ness. I want to warn you. I want all my girls 
to live the test life. I want you to have the best 
God has for you. Knowing what the best was I 
chose the second best. Mr. Dunraven says the 
spiritual life of the church is clogged by the mar- 
riage of its members with those who are not 
Christians.” 

“ I believe that too,” said Bek. 

Evidently Bek had thoughts of her own. 

“ I wouldn’t like your own father to know 
how little I have done for the church he loved 
so much; and I had such dreams of usefulness 
when I was the minister’s wife. I would like 
one of my girls to be a minister’s wife and do 
the work I could not do — the work that was 
taken out of my hands.” 


222 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


Bek flushed and flushed as her head drooped 
over her work. 

Might she be chosen for such happy work ? Oh, 
how she would love to do it. And had not she 
a right to be chosen before the others because she 
was a minister’s daughter ? A right to be chosen ! 
Ah, Bek, it is God who has the right to choose. 

I hope I have been father’s blessing,” faltered 
the poor wife ; “ he says so, but I have not brought 
him to God.” 

“ You are everybody’s blessing ! ” cried Bek, 
impetuously. 

“I will not ask you to promise — I know you 
will not link your life with a life that is not con- 
secrated to God’s service.” 

Was there need to promise? Had not one 
whose life was consecrated spoken to her mother 
about her ? 

He was coming again. 

“ Did — God — ever — let — people — thank — Him — 
for something — that He had not — given them?” 

The question came between quick catches in 
her breath; each pause a burden in itself, a bur- 
den of doubt; no one could tell her, she must 
live it through and find out for herself She could 
not know sure until God told her. She could not 


FAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. 


223 


ask even Miss Southernwood. Was she deceiv- 
ing any one because she had caught those few 
words of ambiguous meaning? Would Mr. Pren- 
tiss be sorry about it? Ought she to confess it 
to her mother? But how could she without con- 
fessing that she was glad, so glad, more glad 
every day ? How she would need somebody when 
her mother was gone! 

“ Bek 1 Bek I ” called Lulu from the lower hall, 
“ Pauline is ready to show you how she cans 
peaches.” 

She gave her mother a grateful, silent, appre- 
ciative kiss and then went down to the kitchen 
to learn how to can peaches, the peaches that 
her mother would not share with them. 

Just then it seemed cruel to let the household 
ways go on; but would it not be more cruel to 
let them stop? So she listened with brimming 
eyes while Pauline reiterated that the cans must 
overflow and the covers be screwed on tight and 
the cans then turned over to stand on their heads 
sc as to be sure that there was no place for any- 
thing to ooze out. “ For if the juice can get out, 
the air can get in,” she repeated oracularly. Was 
this the same world that she had been living in 
ten minutes ago? Or was it only the difference 


224 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


between up stairs and down stairs? Catching her 
breath with quick sobs she hurried through the 
kitchen, out to the coolness and quietness of the 
back piazza to seek to gather herself together, to 
bring eyes and lips into sweetness and bright- 
ness before she took them upstairs. 

A stout figure clothed in linen pantaloons and 
a short linen coat, with a coarse, broad straw hat 
slouched over its face stood with bent head and 
folded arms leaning against one of the posts of 
the piazza. The moody, bent face was handsome 
and brown, with iron-gray hair and heavy iron- 
gray moustache. 

“ Bek,” said the deep voice, “ is that you ? ” 

“Yes, sir,” answered Bek, brightly. Bek could 
brighten her voice at an instant’s notice. 

He lifted his head, turned and looked at her.. 

“I’ve come to the jumping-off place; I suppose 
everybody does, once in their lives, and I’ve come 
to mine.” 

“Don’t jump unless you have to,” said Bek. 

“ I’ve got to — some time. I can’t tell your 
mother. I’ve got to tell somebody. I’ve been 
cheated at last — it’s righteous retribution ; I cheated 
somebody once, and now it has come back on my 
own head,” he added grimly. “ I knew it would. 


PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. 


226 


but people call such things business. I suppose 
it’s somebody’s business that the farm will have 
to go; it has all come of writing rny name on 
a piece of paper to oblige somebody; I thought 
he was as honest as the day, and now to give 
three orphans back their money, Bek, I’ve got 
to sell this farm my father left to me.” 

‘ When?'' asked Bek, turning very pale. 

“Not till spring — she’ll never know it,” he an- 
swered, huskily, “and then it will take a long 
pull, a strong pull and a pull all together for us 
to get a living on a little farm nearer the village 
that can be bought cheap. The farm Murphy is 
on.” 

“ That ! ” cried Bek. “ Why he’s a poor Irish- 
man and works it on shares.” 

“Yes, but we are not poor Irishmen, and shall 
not work it on shares. I shall buy it, and fix up 
the old house, and earn my bread by the sweat 
of my brow, as better men have done before me.” 

“ Mother won’t know,” was every word that 
Bek could utter. 

“ Don’t you tell anybody on earth,” he continued. 

But she might tell somebody in Heaven. 

“ Promise ! ” 

“Yes,” she promised wearily. 


226 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER, 


“I feel better now that somebody knows,” he 
said, speaking more lightly, “if I could commit 
murder, I should want to run to the sheriff and 
tell him, for the sake of my peace of mind.” 

“But not for the sake of other people’s,” Bek 
could not refrain from saying. 

He gave a quick laugh at her retort and started 
down the path whistling. The troubled heart up- 
stairs gave a leap at the sound; there could be 
sounds of life and gladness in the home, there 
would be by and by, all would go on just the 
same. 

Bek was thinking of the children; how they 
would miss the roomy house, the broad fields, 
the woods, the brook! It was of no use; eyes 
and lips could not be taken to her mother, she 
had to go away by herself. 


XTV. 


PEACE. 

“Peace is rarely denied to the peaceful.” — ScniLiiEE. 

Was it wicked to wish for money? But it was 
not for inoney; it was wishing to save their beau 
tiful, wide home to the children, to the children 
who were her mother’s only legacy; she could 
not earn it; years and years of labor would be 
required to earn so large a sum. By and by 
when they were compelled to take up their abode 
in that old, rickety house she would go back to 
Eutledge Felix. Lulu could be housekeeper and 
the little salary would make some difference at 
home. Her mother would never know their dis- 
appointment, privations and changes; there was 
need of such hard things in the kingdom on 
the earth. Poor little Bek was not brave in 
these days, she prayed some strong prayers and 
would have wept many weak tears, but that she 
must keep her face sunshiny for her mother. 


228 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER, 


Oftentimes the sunshine seemed to be struggling 
through a cloud. 1 do not know how it was, 
but she fell asleep more easily after her father 
had confided his trouble to her than she had 
done for weeks before; one sorrow seemed to 
help her bear the other, and then she was young 
and strong and in the future loomed up the 
prospect of something to do. Something to do, 
while of late she had only had something to 
bear. 

“Your daughter has character in her face,” 
said I to a mother recently. 

“Yes, but why don’t she do something,” was 
the irritable reply. 

What was there for Bek to do in the world 
beside what she was doing? To be a loving 
daughter, an unselfish, loving sister, and in her 
small measure, a Tryphena or Tryphosa in the 
church: these were her present aims. In her 
dreams she may have had others; but there was 
little time for dreams in these full days. Dreams 
are enervating oftentimes, bnt in the known will 
of God there is strength. And Bek had the known 
will and the strength. The mother to whom I 
allude would have thought my Bek a very sim- 
ple child for a woman of twenty -three; she would 


PEACE. 


229 


have asked what she was doing with her edu- 
cation. She was doing with her education what 
she was doing with herself — her education was 
herself. Her “ education ” was to glorify God, 
as she did every day; and to enjoy Him, as she 
did every day. God thinks that doing some- 
thing. Her world was such a little world; she 
did not even glance at her father’s daily paper. 
And this was the way in which she was learn- 
ing new things and not forgetting the old. The 
world of Jennie Prentiss was not so narrow; she 
had found something to do out among people. 
Mollie Sherwood’s world was wider and narrower; 
since that last morning at Rutledge Felix she 
had lived simply to have a good time, and dole- 
ful indeed were some of the times she had had. 
Gertrude Raymond, disappointed and heart-broken 
was trying hard to be a patient wife; but, in 
secret, her soul recoiled from her weak husband, 
and she felt as if she tugged at her own heart 
to keep any love in it. 

All this time Mollie Sherwood was not mar- 
ried; while she was travelling in Europe, Ernest 
Vanderveer broke his engagement, and married 
a friend of Mollie’s. I have been so absorbed 
in Bek that I forgot to tell you about it. Mollie 


230 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER, 


was not proud like Bek; she thought her heart 
was broken; but it was not a wholesome break; 
a secret bitterness rankled in the wound all her 
life— she became distrustful, morbid, and envious; 
she could not understand why God blessed others 
and passed her by. She did not love God, but 
she was afraid of Him. Her father was harassed 
in his business life, her step-mother was not in 
sympathy with any phase of her plans or hopes 
— they simply tolerated each other; for the last 
year they had spoken to each other only in Mr. 
Sherwood’s presence. He never suspected their 
uncongeniality; they both loved him too sin- 
cerely to vex him with their misunderstandings. 
He had never been a rich man, and during Mol- 
lie’s first year out of school, he became a poor 
one. Mollie poured all her troubles out to Bek, 
and wished that she might take life as serenely 
as Bek did; but she was not willing to take 
Bek’s way of doing it. 

Bek grieved about her friend; Miss Southern- 
wood said that she had not changed, she was 
only developing. Bek was ’only developing, also. 
The change had been years ago. 

Mollie, like the energetic girl that she was, be- 
gan early in her father’s embarrassments to look 


PEACE. 


231 


around for something to do; she had not a particle 
of false pride, she would have become a shop-girl 
or chamber-maid to support herself and relieve her 
father. After answering many advertisements of 
various kinds, she at last bethought herself of Kiit- 
ledge Felix, and wrote to Mrs. Graves just in time 
to learn that a teacher for the third grade was in 
request: Miss Southernwood had decided to re- 
main with Bek Westerly, Miss Aiken would take 
her place, and Miss Cole would fill Miss Aiken’s 
position. Mrs. Kutledge had a strong preference 
for Bek Westerly; Mollie had not been a hard 
student, but she would be a good disciplinarian, 
and had energy and conscientiousness enough to fit 
herself for her work. So Mollie went to Eutledge 
Felix in September without making Bek the long 
written about visit, and Miss Southernwood found 
herself comfortably installed in Bek’s own chamber, 
and was told that she must consider herself a fixt- 
ure for a lifetime. The interest of her savings and 
of a smali sum that she had inherited would yield 
her sufficient support, and she might give the rest 
of her life to good works and have the comfort of the 
companionship of Bek Westerly, the girl of all girls 
whom she loved best. She almost felt as if, at 
last, she were the mother of daughters. All her 


232 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


life her one enthusiasm had been — girls. And 
now with her own Bek, brilliant little Lulu, and 
the beautiful twins she would be perfectly sat- 
isfied. 

I wonder if you do believe as fully as I do that 
we do have our heart’s desire down here in the 
kingdom on the earth. 

“ I’m too glad to thank you,” was all Mrs. Mau- 
rice could say when she unfolded her plan of board- 
ing with them, becoming governess to Lulu and 
the twins, and, if she did not turn spendthrift in her 
old age, of bequeathing her little fortune to the 
one who should be the most in need of it. Bek, 
she knew, was provided for. 

“And if the girls do not need it, there is Bertie,” 
she had added. 

The twins danced around her. Lulu wrote a 
poem about it. Chip declared it was jolly, Mr. 
Maurice thanked her in his cordial, abrupt fashion, 
and Bek’s eyes were luminous all day long. Every- 
body began to feel rested. Mrs. Maurice said it 
helped her to go to sleep every night. 

“ Mrs. Maurice, you need a trained nurse,” said 
the doctor one day; “ it worries you to see the girls 
so tired.” 

“They will not consent,” she protested. 


PEACE, 


233 


“They will consent to anything that is good for 
you. Miss Southernwood, find a nurse for her.” 

“ I will,” said Miss Southernwood, remembering 
J ennie Prentiss. Miss Southernwood went in search 
of her that afternoon ; the next day she found her at 
an orphan asylum taking care of sixteen children 
with whooping cough. It was a week before she 
could be released; when she came Mrs. Maurice 
was charmed; sleep and freedom from responsi- 
bility brought the color back to Bek’s cheeks and 
the lightness to her steps. Bek always remem- 
bered Janot Prentiss as she stood in the doorway 
of the nursery that afternoon in the twilight. She 
was reading to her mother sitting beside the 
lounge, at a slight bustle and stir on the stairs 
she lifted her eyes and beheld the new nurse on 
the threshold. A tall, well-rounded figure in 
dark brown, a brown travelling hat with a dash 
of crimson about it; cheeks like the sunny side 
of a peach, eyes like the blue of the deep sea — 
that was all she saw, but she felt that one had 
come over whom the spirit of peace brooded. 

“ My dear,” exclaimed Mrs. Maurice, stretch- 
ing out both hands and raising herself to kiss her. 
It was the first time that Bek had ever seen her 
mother kiss a stranger. She was not a girl as Bek 


234 : 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


had supposed, she was a self-poised woman, with 
authority in her voice and resolution in gesture 
and step. 

“She would be perfect,” Chip growled after a 
week, “if she didn’t make you mind so.” 

“Yes,” assented his father, “and she will spoil 
it all by getting married; J;hese women with 
vocations always do.” 

“Miss Southernwood hasn’t,” asserted Bek, tri- 
umphantly, “ and Mary Lyon did not, or Fredrika 
Bremer, nor — Queen Elizabeth.” 

“And perhaps getting married doesn’t spoil it,” 
added his wife. 

“It spoils women for the world,” he contended. 
“She can’t take care of an orphan asylum after 
she is married, nor spend her life in the hospitals. 
And it is the women that the world can’t spare 
that are married.” 

“The world can’t spare them as wives and 
mothers,” smiled Mrs. Maurice. Lulu became 
fired with zeal to study at the Training School 
for Nurses and Bek half promised that they would 
talk about it some day. 

September with its golden days passed on, 
October came, and November, with its fire upon 
the hearth, was near its end before the Messenger 


PEACE. 


235 


came. They had all learned how happy it was 
to wait every day for the coming of the Lord. 
“ I will come again and receive you unto myself,” 
promised the Lord. The last things had long 
been done, the last words almost said, but that 
new last words must be spoken every new day. 

One afternoon in the dusk Bek sat with her 
mother alone. The white muslin curtains had 
been exchanged for crimson; she had dropped 
them an hour ago that the red glow upon the 
hearth might be the only light in the chamber. 
The lifeless fingers lay in Bek’s warm clasp, moved 
only at Bek’s will; it was days since they had 
lifted themselves. Her mother’s eyes were on 
her face ; Bek smiled and bent to kiss her fingers. 
That old caress ! It had been one of Bek’s baby 
habits, and she had kept it all these years. 

“ Perfect peace,” murmured the pale lips. “ Fa- 
ther prays with me — often,” she went on in 
her low tone, “he is in the dark — but he is 
coming to the light.” 

“ I am so glad ! ” Bek said joyfully. “I’m so 
glad you know about it, precious mamma.” 

“ I was dreaming about you just now. I thought 
you were in your little bed, and you awoke in 
the night and put out your hand to find mine — 


236 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


you used to do that even after Lulu Avas my 
little baby.” 

After a moment she said slowly as if to herself: 

“But Bek will be provided for — Mr. Prentiss 
knows — ” 

Bek’s head drooped and a hot flush overspread 
cheek and brow. Something about her future 
was a comfort to her mother even now. The 
eyelids dropped and she slept; Bek gazed into 
the red glow on the hearth until her OAvn eyelids 
closed and she was dreaming that her mother 
was calling her. 

“Bek—” 

She started and bent over her mother. 

“The children — ” she whispered. 

“Yes,” promised Bek, quietly. 

She fell asleep again, and at midnight the 
Bridegroom came and she went out to meet 
Him. 


XY. 


AT THE FIRST. 

“The Lord is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are 
weighed.” 

“ Everything must go on just the same,” Lulu 
often quoted. 

Her mother had exacted a promise from each 
one that each would do her best to have every- 
thing go on just the same. So, just the same 
the rising-bell rang at six, the breakfast-bell at 
seven, and after breakfast in the cheery breakfast 
room family prayer in memory of another promise; 
they began the day in all the old ways : household 
work, study, music lessons — each one seeking to 
find some new interest for the other, each one 
speaking of mother” tenderly, as often as they 
would, each one loving the others all the more 
unselfishly because one had been taken away. 
Everything that reminded one of a sleeping 
apartment had been removed from the nursery, 
and everything that could make it desirable as 


238 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


a school-room brought into it; maps, globes, and 
desks were sent from Kutledge Felix, a box of school 
books and a pile of sheet music. Miss Southern- 
wood was never more in her element; at last, 
she was teaching simply for love of it, as Mark 
Eyerson often wished that he might teach music, 
and the girls were studying simply for the love 
of it. 

Bek studied regularly, also ; Miss Southernwood 
declared that Bek would never outgrow being a 
school-girl. 

Janet Prentiss was persuaded to remain “to 
rest” until the new year; Bek clung to her as 
to the older sister she had always been longing 
for; none of them could sufficiently express their 
gratitude for the loving, faithful service she had 
rendered all through those days of waiting. 

The long letters from her brother that she read 
them as a special privilege over the school-room 
fire was one of the rare pleasures of her visit. 

Bek always listened, her face averted, a mist 
veiling her happy eyes; Lulu listened as she had 
listened to his preaching, flushed, eager, with 
words of enthusiasm afterward, never forget- 
ting to send a message, but Bek, painfully self- 
conscious, had never a word to say. 


AT THE FIRST. 


239 


For a week after her mother’s death Bek had 
lived as if in a dream; nothing seemed worth 
while, all she desired was to lie still with her 
eyes closed from morning until night sobbing or 
moaning, or praying hysterical prayers. But they 
would not let her have her way; the children 
came with demands all day long, Miss Southern- 
wood and Janet talked about everything as usual, 
even Lulu would rouse her from a reverie with a 
question about something for dinner or supper. 
It was of no use, she decided, at last, people did 
seem to need her; she might as well begin again, 
as she had begun again once before. It had come; 
it was over and she could breathe again. She was 
not unhappy; she could give thanks because of 
her mother’s peace and joy ; even in the quiet rou- 
tine of her days there was much to do and much 
to think about. And then there was the future; 
hopeful girlhood has always a future to look forward 
to. Had it not been for plans and hopes concern- 
ing the dreaded change in the spring, her days 
would have been what you might call “hum- 
drum,” like the most of your days, perhaps, with 
nothing happening. The most of her days all that 
winter were dull and plodding, with their quiet 
round of occupation, with only the amusement she 


240 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


made for herself and the children. But there was 
an undersong of hope, faith, peace, joy, filling her 
days because she listened to it. And it was in 
her face, voice and step because it was in her 
heart. All her tears for her mother were soft, 
blessed tears. Even when she was troubled Ber- 
tie’s voice and caress had power to bring her back 
into his sunshiny world. It would have been a 
happy winter were it not for visions by night and 
by day of that old, little red farmhouse where 
]\Iurphy the Irishman lived. At times the re- 
membrance of it weighed upon her like a night- 
mare. No one knew it beside herself; she had no 
one to bear it with her. Her father had never 
made another allusion to it, but she read the truth 
every day in his knitted brow, absent manner, 
and gloomy eyes. No one could help her; not 
Miss Southernwood, or Janet, not even Janets 
brother; Mr. Ryerson had helped her once, but 
how could he help her now? And how would 
God help? By keeping their home for them, or 
by teaching them how to live in the old, red, 
tumble-down house? He had the power to do 
either; which would He choose to do? To await 
His choosing with faith, with patience and with 
all the cheer she could muster gave a zest to her 


AT THE FIRST. 


241 


quiet days. It was one of the secrets that she 
would know by and by. 

Lulu read aloud the daily paper every evening, 
thus becoming interested in the movements of 
the great world ; her remarks were so often laugh- 
able and shrewd and her questions so much to 
the point that she beguiled the dull evenings for 
her father and caused him often to forget his 
hour for retiring. She read the biographies of 
statesmen with Chip, and talked them over with 
him with a boyish enthusiasm; Bek was often 
dreamy and pre-occupied, but the whole world 
was Lulu’s own, to learn about, to wonder about, 
to sympathize with and to seek to understand. 
If it were not for that Training School for Nurses 
she thought she would like to start out and travel 
all over the world. Fredrika Bremer^s life was 
one of her enthusiasms. With splendid health, 
high spirits, and life all before her, how could she 
but rush and tingle through her days of promise ? 

“ I mean my life to be a success^'" she exclaimed 
one day. “I wonder what success is — to a girl, 
a woman,” she added thoughtfully. 

That afternoon she was sitting over the school- 
room fire reading with moistened eyelashes about 
the last days of Mary Somerville. Certainly her 


242 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


life had been a success. A light step paused at 
the threshold, a light tap touched the door; as 
the light tap met with no response, the door was 
pushed open and a face looked in. A young face 
with an old expression; cheeks faded with care, 
eyes sunken with sorrow or illness, a drawn look 
about the lips, a hollowness and yellowness about 
the temples that one sees in age. The face was 
sweet and pretty still; it reminded one of what 
it had been, of what it might be, if the heart 
were at rest. 

“ Gertrude Kaymond ! ” exclaimed Lulu in sur- 
prise, springing toward her. “ I thought your 
fever would not let you venture out in a snow- 
storm.” 

February was not a spring month this year; it 
was a month of snow-storms. 

“ Oh, 1 don’t have it every day,” she answered 
carelessly; “the doctor says these continued 
fevers are hard to break up. He thinks, per- 
haps, my normal condition is to be abnormal. 
I begin to think it is, myself” 

Moving slowly to the fire she dropped down 
upon Bertie’s hassock, and held her hands to the 
blaze, shivering and laughing a little. Nowadays 
Gertrude laughed oftener than she smiled. 


AT THE FIRST. 


243 


“Bek sent me up; she thought I would find 
Miss Southernwood here.” 

“She was here an hour ago; to-day is one of 
her anniversary days.” 

“Anniversary days?” repeated Gertrude. 

“Yes, she has so many she keeps a register 
of them. In two days it will be the anniversary 
of the marriage of one of her girls and of the 
widowhood of another; she is to write to each 
of them so they will receive it on that day. She 
lives in so many persons lives. She never lets 
any one go. She was quoting to me to-day some- 
thing about keeping our friendships in repair. 
The letters she receives are legion. Chip threatens 
her with the expense of a leather mail-bag. She 
gives us glimpes into so many lives. We would 
ber forlorn without her and Janet. I suppose she 
is in her own room writing. This room and Miss 
Southernwood’s room are our sanctuaries.” 

“ That’s what I’ve come for, to find a sanctuary,” 
said Gertrude, in a hopeless tone. “I wish she 
would write to me. She ^ used to; but I did not 
answer her last letter.” 

“ You haven’t an anniversary yet. I’m always 
having anniversaries; some private and personal 
anniversary.” 


244 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


“ I hate anniversaries ; sometimes I hate every- 
thing.” 

Lulu looked at her and then looked into the fire. 
She did not know how to talk to any one who 
hated everything; there seemed nowhere to begin. 

Re-opening her book she asked : “ Isn’t Bek 
coming up soon?” 

“ Why ? Do you want to get rid of me ? ” 

“Yes; I don’t know what to say to you next.’’ 

“ I don’t believe she does either ; I don’t believe 
anybody does. I’ll have the luxury of silence now 
for awhile. What a blessed thing it would be 
if people didn’t speak when they had nothing 
to say ! I left Bek teaching the twins how to 
make biscuits for tea. Has your good old Pauline 
left you at last ? ” 

“ She has gone to see that sister of hers who 
is an invalid, for a week or two. She would take 
Pauline away from us if she could, but she never 
can. She says she will stay until the last of us 
is dead or married.” 

“It doesn’t matter which, I suppose,” laughed 
Gertrude. 

As the twilight deepened, the glow upon the 
hearth brightened; in its light, or because of 
something else, the color begun to flush the wan 


AT THE FIRST 


245 


cheeks, and the drawn look about the lips gave 
place to a sweet, grave restfulness. No one but 
God could comfort Gertrude Prentiss, and no one 
but God did. Her mother worried her, her grand- 
father lectured her, and her husband was break- 
ing her heart; for people do not always die with 
broken hearts. 

With her heart at leisure from any sorrow. Lulu 
dropped into her book again, and Gertrude gazed 
straight into the fire, not seeing it or anything; 
yes, she did see something, — she saw her hus- 
band’s face. She thought she always saw it. 
She had a fashion of coming often to see Miss 
Southernwood, therefore Lulu thought no more 
of entertaining her than she thought of entertain- 
ing Bek herself. Gertrude was never entertained, 
nowadays, she could never forget herself. Awak- 
ing from sleep she not seldom found the tears of 
a forgotten dream upon her eyelashes. 

Turning suddenly from the fire she studied 
Lulu a long while, her face, her attitude, her 
absorption in her book; it was so long since she 
had lost herself in a book like that. But she 
knew she had once — even after she came from 
boarding-school. 

“Lulu!” 


246 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


But Lulu did not hear. 

“Lulu, I envy you,” said the wistful voice. 

“ Because I’ve something to read and you 
haven’t?” queried Lulu, lifting her eyes for one 
instant. 

“No.” 

“Because I’m a genius?” she questioned soberly. 

“You may be, but it isn’t that!” 

“Because I’m a beauty, or an heiress, or be- 
cause I’m going to do to-morrow the thing I want 
to do.” 

“ If that were all true, it wouldn’t be for that.” 

“Then, what is it pray?” Lulu asked with 
questioning, laughing eyes. 

“ I envy you because you have opportunity,’ 
Gertrude answered seriously. 

“Opportunity to do what? Distinguish my- 
self?” 

“To do the best thing,” she answered evasively. 

“The best thing just now means to run down- 
stairs to assist in the general confusion. Chip 
and I are to make molasses candy to-night, and 
I ought to be picking out the nuts for it while 
he cracks them this very minute.” 

She arose and laid her book upon her desk and 
darted out, a bird of brilliant plumage in her 


AT THE FIRST. 


247 


clinging, crimson merino and a narrow band of 
crimson velvet binding her hair. 

“ What a warm, soft, bright, coaxing, lovable little 
creature she is ! ” 

The voice was above Gertrude’s head, in an in- 
stant motherly arms were about her and lips that 
never rebuked were touching her brow. 

“ Well, Snow-bird, have you flown into our 
warm nest?” 

“ I wish I might, and stay forever,” she re- 
turned in a shuddering voice. “I begged Julius 
to bring me, he had to pass the house, but he 
will not come back this way, so I can stay all 
night. I was getting desperate.” 

“Poor child,” comforted Miss Southernwood. 

“If I might only go down-stairs and be a 
girl again, and laugh and have fun! Just hear 
that! And how Bek sings! Just as she used 
to at school. And I feel like an old woman. 
If Bek Westerly or Lulu or Marne Dunraven 
or Janet had a husband who was on his way 
to a sick-room with his brain bewildered, and 
his eyes bloodshot, and with cubeb berries in 
his mouth to disguise his breath, they would 
grow old before their time as easily as I do,” 
she returned brokenly and with sobs. 


248 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


She had no ^pride with Miss Southernwood; 
she could pour out her bitter heart to her as 
easily as in her prayers. 

“Sit down, child.” 

She was trembling and shivering; she was 
glad to obey, she threw herself down upon 
the hassock again. 

In her very practical manner Miss Southern- 
wood stirred the fire and laid two knotty sticks 
upon it. Chip growled somewhat about the 
armfuls of wood he had to bring up night and 
morning for this fire, but Miss Southernwood 
assured him that she wished she had a mission 
herself to keep up a fire upon somebody’s hearth. 

“No one knows but you; mother worries me 
and worries about me, but she doesn’t know 
half, and grandfather talks to us both because 
we are not ‘ consistent.’ Dr. Mason knows some- 
thing, but he doesn’t know all; nobody knows 
all. Julius gave a patient quinine powders in- 
stead of morphine the other night. Suppose it 
had been morphine instead of quinine! Now he 
carries the morphine in his pocket, and the 
quinine in his medicine case. I threatened to 
tell Dr. Mason if he would not. Now that we 
are boarding with Dr. Mason, I live in con- 


AT THE FIRST. 


249 


tinual fear that he will discover something that 
Julius does. ' He was too stupefied with brandy 
to answer a call last night, and 1 had to get 
up and ask Dr. Mason to go, and to say that 
my husband was not able to go out. He looked 
sharply at me, and oh, how he looked at Julius 
this morning! But he looked sick enough, if 
that were all he wanted to discover. He has 
kidney disease and some doctor told him he 
had brought it on by drinking; he knows it 
himself How he deceived all Clovernook I I 
am sure Dr. Mason intends to do something. 
Julius has certainly forfeited all right to his 
confidence. He threatens to leave me with mo- 
ther, and go West to find a place to settle; but 
if he ever breaks away from me he’ll grow 
worse and worse. Every place is the same to 
me; we would come to disgrace anywhere. I 
think he doesn’t want me to go with him,” she 
continued quietly, “ he would feel freer without 
me. I try not to reproach him, but sometimes 
the words burst out of me. He knows how I 

turn from him when he is I believe I loathe 

him. I reminded him to-night as we were driv- 
ing along how he told me again and again be- 
fore we were married that he never touched 


250 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


liquor unless he were ill. And I suspect he 
had been drinking when he said it. I was so 
innocent and his breath was always so pleas- 
ant. I used to laugh about his keeping his 
breath perfumed, and he said that it was that 
he might be pleasant in sick-rooms. I thought 
I knew him through and through. I used to 
think I could read human nature; but a wicked 
man was too much for me. Oh, how I believed 
in him ! ” 

The passionate words were spoken in a pas- 
sionless tone; in her eyes slept a dead calm. 

“I cannot take his word about anything. I 
believe there isn’t anything that he hasn’t told me 
a lie about. His moral sense is blunted. Some- 
times he takes opium when it is impossible for 
him to drink. If I could love him, I could bear 
it better; but often I do not even pity him. I 
only despise him. I want to do right because 
it is right. I know I love God if I do not love 
— my husband.” 

Her lips quivered as she forced them to say 
“my husband.” 

“I try to say it to myself,” she said pitifully. 
“I think it helps me feel that he belongs to 
me, I cannot feel that I belong to him. I don’t 


AT THE FIRST. 


251 


like to have God think of me as a part of him; 
I don’t want to be ‘one flesh’ and I couldn’t 
be ‘one spirit.’” 

“Do you ask Him to give you love to your 
husband ? ” 

“No.” 

“Why not?” 

“I don’t want to love him. I can’t love any 
one like him. There isn’t any place in my 
heart for the love to be put.” 

“He can make a place.” 

“Does He want me to love him?” she asked 
in a child’s tone. 

“Answer that question yourself,” Miss South- 
ernwood answered patiently. 

“Perhaps He never wanted him to be my hus- 
band at all,” she evaded, wilfully. 

“He permitted it; and you are his wife, God 
expects you to do — requires of you to do the 
wife’s perfect duty. Love your husband, for 
Jesus’ sake.” 

“ 1 don’t know how,” she moaned. “ I loved 
him once for his own sake, and now he hasn’t 
any sake of his own.” 

“I have no other word for you.” 

“1 don’t know what it means, and how it 


252 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER, 


means for Jesus' sake. Shall I love him because 
Jesus loves him? I don’t see bow Jesus can 
love him?” 

“Do you see how He can love you?” 

“ No,” she said, after - a moment, “ I don’t. 
Miss Southernwood — don’t reason with me ! ” she 
implored, “I’ve worn myself out reasoning with 
myself. Awhile ago I sat here so comforted, 
feeling so happy and forgiven^ and now it surges 
over me again and overwhelms me. I cannot 
always forgive him, and it is that that hardens 
my heart. And I cannot forgive myself for not 
hearkening to my mother and Mr. Dunraven. I 
was angry with Mr. Dunraven; I told him he 
had no right to come and talk to me. I was 
so sure I could be all that Julius needed. He 
said I could. But he deceived me about Janet. 
I would not have taken him away from her, al- 
though,” with a dreary laugh, “she may thank 
me for doing her such a service.” 

And Bek! Happy Bek! But Gertrude never 
knew of Bek’s danger and escape. 

“ When I go home and see mother needing 
me every minute and think of her missing me 
in the storm to-night, I am frantic. She may 
have another stroke any day, Julius says. And 


AT THE FIRST. 


253 


I might have been so happy to-night, without 
a care and without a dread. And I am dying: 
by inches because I am worried to death. It is 
all I have lost as well as what I have gotten 
that is killing me. I think the lost spirits must 
be miserable because of losing Heaven as well 
as because of being in hell.” 

She grew quieter as she thus poured herself out ; 
if intense quietness could grow quieter; pitying 
fingers touched her hair, the pitying lips had 
no new word of help to give. 

“Julius drank himself stupid more than two 
or three times on our wedding journey. Tenny- 
son’s words : ‘ Widowed marriage pillow ’ kept 
haunting me. I was a forlorn bride enough! I 
wonder I didn’t go wild. Perhaps I did; he 
said he didn’t know any woman could talk her- 
self exhausted. He is not unkind to me. He 
sheds tears, and makes promises, and turns neat 
sentences about repentance, and reminds me that 
I am the angel on earth that rejoices over the 
sinner that repents. But his repentance doesn’t 
last a night and a day.” 

The pitying fingers smoothed her hair; the 
pitying lips were silent. For what sorrow was 
like unto this sorrow? 


254 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER, 


He carries a flask in liis breast pocket; he has 
it to-night; he said it would be cold driving back. 
I tried to steal it away, but he detected it and was 
furious. Gipsy starts at every little thing; she 
has run away with him once. He had to take her 
to-night because the horse he drives at night is 
lame. He has four calls to make to-night; Dr. 
Mason will not go out at night unless he is com- 
pelled to. The road to Lakeview is very lonesome; 
I almost wish I had gone with him. He likes me 
to go with him in the evening; he coaxed me to 
go to-night, but I felt ugly and refused. I wish I 
had gone with him; he isn’t very strong. Oh, I do 
want to be a good wife to him ! I wanted him 
to take the boy, but he said he went away this 
afternoon with Dr. Mason. I suppose mother will 
think of him to-night, she used to like him so much 
before she knew he thought of me. Sometimes 
I think he would never have thought of me if 
I had not loved him so much; I suppose he could 
not help feeling it as much as I tried to hide it, and 
he said he had been troubled, and I was sent to 
him in just the right time. How happy I used to 
be; I used to weep for very gladness.” 

“ 1 trust you will again, dear.” 

“I don’t know; I can’t hope so. If Julius had 


AT THE FIRST. 


255 


changed I might hope it; but he isn’t changed, he 
is only revealing his real life. I loved my imagi- 
nation of him. He deceived me because he was 
deceived in himself. He really believes that he 
does repent, but I know that he doesn’t; he con- 
fesses, but that is all.” 

“Does he confess to God?” 

“I asked him that, and he laughed; but one 
night when he was sick he was frightened, and 
asked me to pray; and the next day he laughed at 
himself for being afraid. I wish I knew how mo- 
ther is to-night. Julius promised to call there to- 
morrow, but he will put it off. She is sitting and 
reading there alone, for grandfather has gone to 
Aunt Sarah’s ; she can’t knit or sew because of that 
poor, right hand. I am her poor right hand now. 
I will certainly go to see her to-morrow. If she 
should have a stroke in the night, Susan would 
never know; she sleeps in a cot in mother’s room, 
but she is such a hard sleeper.” 

“ My dear, I am glad you came to me to-night. 
Your mother is not alone.” How strong and alive 
and full of good cheer this voice sounded in con- 
trast with the pathetic stillness of the other voice. 

“ Miss Southernwood, you never had any trouble.” 
Gertrude suggested rather than inquired. 


256 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


“Not any of my own with sin in it. Twice in 
*my life I have thought that I had more than I could 
bear. But I did bear it, and I am growing more 
and more into a happy old woman without any 
heart-ache at all of my own. If every woman 
would tell her story to-night, we would know that 
all the world of womanhood has something hard 
to bear.” 

“Bek and Lulu seem as bright as ever; when I 
came in Bek was tumbling Bertie over on the car- 
pet, and they were both laughing so hard they did 
not know I was in the room. But theirs is a happy 
trouble. And Janet Prentiss is as full of life as a 
lark! But they haven’t any of them anything 
dreadful to look forward to. I’m afraid it will kill 
me when everybody knows about Julius. Often I 
think I am more afraid of the disgrace than the 
sin. I want him to go far away before he is so bad 
that he has to give up practice. But would you 
mind telling me about your trouble? I like to 
know that I am not sorrowful above all the world.” 

How pretty her intonation was I Miss Southern- 
wood had been proud of Gertrude Kaymond at 
school. 

“ Of course I will tell you. I am not such a 
lonely old woman that I cannot speak of it. 


/ 


AT THE FIRST, . 257 

Before I was as old as you are I was engaged 
to a young doctor; he was the brother of Janet’s 
father. We had all fair promise for the future, 
but he died. Several years later — there was a 
convention, a convention of ministers; it was in 
vacation and I was at home. Mother entertained 
three of them. Among the three was one who 
found me worth loving. I had not forgotten, 
but I learned to love this new friend as sincerely 
as I had loved the other. He hdped me as John 
Prentiss helps Bek and Lulu and Marne Dunraven, 
and how I hoped to have him all my life, to 
grow like him and to work at his side. But he 
died, too.” 

Gertrude did not speak. What was there to 
say? Long ago Miss Southernwood had been 
comforted, and she was comforting others with the 
comfort wherewith she had been comforted. Ger- 
trude bent forward to extinguish a spark that had 
snapped out upon the rug; Miss Southernwood re- 
membered that the curtains had not been dropped; 
when she came back to the fire great tears were 
shining in her eyes — great, soft tears that were 
full of peace. 

“Sometimes,” said Gertrude, as Miss Southern- 
wood seated herself in the arm-chair opposite her, 


258 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


“ I get frightened — I have so little faith. I used 
to think that I had enough to go through anything. 
I have been praying so long for Julius, and my 
prayer has not been answered, not even begun 
to be. I heard Mr. Mailer, that faith man from 
Bristol, that keeps up so many schools on faith, 
say that he had been praying twenty or thirty 
years for a friend, and it was not answered yet; 
and he has such mighty faith. I don’t dare to 
stop praying, but I have no faith, not an atom. 
I’ve been praying that he might see Christ, know 
Him and love Him, and there isn’t the first evidence 
of change in him. I have prayed with my whole 
heart. He seems to be more in the dark than ever. 
He says his uncle is an enthusiast; he acknowl- 
edges that it is a blessed enthusiasm. Now, help 
me, please.” 

Miss Southernwood thought a moment, then 
she drew her willow work-basket nearer and from 
under the pile of sewing drew forth her little Gos- 
pel of Mark. 

I was reading it this very morning, but I did 
not know that I was reading it for you. You 
find the place, and look on in the fire-light to 
help you understand, and I’ll tell you about it. 
It’s in the eighth chapter, beginning at the twenty- 


AT THE FIRST. 


259 


second verse: the beautiful, true story of the blind 
man whom his friends brought to Jesus. He was 
blind like your Julius, he could not find the way 
himself, so his friends brought him with them, as 
you have brought time and time again your blind 
husband. They brought him, but he did not 
plead for himself; he could not see Jesus, and 
they could. They ‘besought’ for him. Perhaps 
he was discouraged about himself, perhaps he did 
not believe the wonderful stories his friends told 
him about the new Prophet, perhaps he called them 
enthusiasts, perhaps he had no heart to speak 
until he heard the voice speaking to him. As he 
could not see the face, it may be that he was wait- 
ing for the encouragement of the voice. Each of 
us must see Jesus for himself; Julius cannot see 
Him in your way. And then, oh, how blessed ! at 
the urgency of his friends, Christ took the blind 
man by the hand. Perhaps, very probably, the 
blind man did not even stretch out his own hand. 
Kemember, like your husband, he could not see. 
But the Lord did not touch his eyes. And that 
was what his friends had besought Him to do. 
We have no record that He spoke a single word to 
him. He only led him away ; led him away in the 


260 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER, 


Gertrude gave a little sob. Oh, if He were only 
leading Julius all this long while in the dark. 
But how could He be leading him while he was 
growing worse and worse ! 

“ He led him away from his friends — away to 
be with Him, out of the town. He had given the 
friends no assurance of a cure ; all they could see 
was that Christ had him by the hand.” 

“ I think that was enough,” said Gertrude in a 
moved tone. 

The passionless voice was gone; in forgetting 
herself and in thinking of Christ her life had 
come back. 

“ They had the sure knowledge that He would 
act just like Himself They must have been con- 
tent to leave him with the Lord leading him by 
the hand. And now let us leave those who had 
asked and follow him who was led. It may be that 
the distance seemed long to the blind man, he did 
not know whither he was going; but I am sure 
that he had begun to trust in his Guide. Perhaps 
in that walk the Lord taught him who it was that 
had him by the hand. Don’t you think that his 
faith grew with every step that he felt the sure 
grasp of that hand.” 

“But he was willing to go now; he was going 


AT THE FIRST. 


261 


of himself,” interrupted Gertrude, “he could have 
broken away from Christ — as Julius does.” 

“You do not know how often he feels the touch 
of Christ’s hand. The friends were left behind. 
And even, when outside the town, away from the 
tumult that his sharpened hearing was accus- 
tomed to, and after his wondering confession, ‘I 
see,’ how did he see ? He saw men as trees 
walking. He might have said that one who 
spoke of the men or the trees was an enthusiast.” 

“Yes,” assented Gertrude, in a full tone. 

“After that — in his peculiar case, this experi- 
ence had to come first, the Lord touched his eyes 
again and bade him look up. And then he saw 
every man clearly, even the face that was looking 
at him with eyes full of sympathy, and then, with 
his happy, clear-seeing eyes he went back to his 
friends. It has been said that no one but Christ 
ever opened the eyes of the blind; also, no man 
cometh unto the father but by Him. There was 
work to be done, waiting to be done, by the friends 
of the blind man. They brought the blind man and 
left him with Christ. That is all you can do. In his 
slow, patient, wisest way Christ is working for you 
both. Your prayer is not large enough to include 
two lives, your life and his, but His answer is.” 


262 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


“ I know my prayer is selfish. I think more of 
my own yearning than of anything else; it is 
like a pain, and I must cry out until it is eased.” 

“ He knows that, and He is teaching you how 
to pray, not for yourself, but for him. If it is only 
like a pain, there is no more of love to your hus- 
band in it, no more of love to Christ in it than 
there is in any prayer to be relieved from pain. 
It is ease for yourself you are crying for.” 

“And I think too much of my prayers; I forget 
there is any other way for him to be saved. I 
give up a whole day to pray for him, and then I 
feel not only like a saint but a martyr.” 

Miss Southernwood could not but smile at her 
rueful face. Gertrude could always probe her own 
wounds. Floy ran up to summon them to tea with 
fiour on her hair and on the bib of her brown 
checked apron. 

“Are you Floy or Nell,” asked Gertrude look- 
ing puzzled. “ I thought Floy wore a blue apron 
tliis afternoon. 

“Look at me and decide,” laughed Floy. 

“I look but I can’t see,” said Gertrude. “You 
are the same height, the same breadth, you dress 
exactly alike and you look exactly alike.” 

“I think Nell is prettier/’ said Floy. 


AT THE FIRST. 


263 


“ Now I know which you are.” 

Papa doesn’t know always until we laugh, 
and Bek’s Baby never knows. Miss Southern- 
wood didn’t use to know,” she said triumphantly. 

“But I know now, you little witch; you can’t 
deceive me. Nell’s face is rounder and her eyes 
are fuller, and she never looks sharp,” said Miss 
Southernwood. 

“And she’s never naughty, so noio you know! 
And my hair curls tighter than hers, and she’s 
half an inch larger around the waist. We didn’t 
make the candy because papa said we mustn’t 
waste the molasses; so we’re going to have the 
nuts to-night and make believe the candy is all 
eaten up. He used to let us make all the candy 
we wanted 1 ” she added, soberly. 

After supper Bek caught her baby in her ai*ms 
and ran away with him up to the school-room fire 
to sing to him, to tell him stories, and to rock him 
t^ sleep. Seated in her mother’s spring rocker 
with the chubby white figure cuddled in her arms 
and the yellow head resting contentedly against 
her shoulder, with the wild beating of the storm 
without and the cozy comfort within, with the 
light and life and laughter and voices down-stairs, 
with all her present to enjoy hour by hour and 


264 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


all her happy future to look forward to, it was no 
marvel that she felt herself to be as satisfied in 
the life chosen for her as any of the Father’s chil- 
dren down here away from Him — nay, not so, 
down here with Him. 

To-night, in the firelight, her face appeared as 
sweet, as free from care, as in her school days ; a 
little wiser, a little older, perhaps, but not sorrowful. 

“Tell me over about the robin birdie,” coaxed 
Bertie, sleepily touching her lips with his plump, 
pink fingers. It was one of their father’s stories, 
but each of them repeated it again and again to 
bird-loving Bertie. 

“Well,” she began in a drowsy, sleep-provoking 
tone, “one day last summer papa found a baby 
robin with a red breast on the grass under the 
crooked apple tree. Papa and Mamma Robin and 
all the little brothers and sisters were up in the 
tree, in their soft, pretty nest, and this poor little 
creature had fallen out, down to the ground, and 
could not fly back again. So she hopped around 
on the green grass and cried out in mournful little 
cries because she was hungry, and Mamma Robin 
up in the tree heard the cries and brought her 
something to eat. And, oh, how glad little 
birdie was to see mamma and have something 


AT THE FIRST. 


265 


nice to eat ! So she hopped around on the grass, 
and when the sun was too hot she hopped to a 
big, shady burdock leaf and crept under and 
had a lovely home all to herself. And every 
time she was hungry she cried, and Mamma Eobin 
brought her a nice little worm to eat, or perhaps 
a currant, or a bit of raspberry. Three days papa 
saw her hopping around and saw Mamma Eobin 
come to feed her, and one morning he went out — 
it had rained hard all night — and found the little 
creature all wet, and dead on the ground. The 
rain had killed it in the night.” 

“Oh,” sighed Bertie as he sighed every time, 
“was it dead?” 

“Yes, it was dead.” 

With another contented sigh he nestled closer, 
patting her cheek with his fingers until his hand 
fell and he was asleep. When Gertrude re-en- 
tered Bek was sitting over the fire alone. 

“ Dreaming, Bek ? ” 

“Yes,” Bek started, “and I ought to be mend- 
ing Bertie’s shoes. It would be altogether more 
profitable.” 

“ Must you light a lamp ? ” 

“No, I can see in the firelight.” 

Bek brought her work-basket and knelt on 


263 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


Bertie’s hassock with his red shoe in . her tiand. 
Three buttons were missing and there was a rent 
at the side. 

“Lulu has been asking me what success is,” 
said Gertrude, slipping into the spring rocker. 

“Success just now is mending this little boot 
neatly,” returned Bek gravely. “Awhile ago it 
was a music lesson and making biscuits. I make 
my successes, as I go along.” 

“I see you do,” said Gertrude, with a slight 
hardness in her tone. “ I made mine all at once — 
in one bold stroke.” 

“ Mine isn’t made yet then, I suppose you 
think,” questioned the shoe-mender, holding the 
red boot closer to the blaze. 

“Your father said it was doing what one 
started out to do ; he had started out to get rich 
and he had failed.” 

“ Hasn’t he tried to do anything else ? ” 

“He didn’t say. I asked Miss Southernwood 
if her life were a success, and she said yes. Chip 
said he had started out to be a first-class farmer, 
and the twins said they had started out to go to 
Kutledge Felix and be graduated after Miss South- 
ernwood had taught them enough to enter for 
the last year.” 


AT THE FIRST, 


267 


“What did Lulu say?” 

“Oh, Janet Prentiss has infected her!’ 

“ What did you say ? ” 

“ I ? ” laughed Gertrude. “ There’s nothing left 
for me; I’ve done it all.” 

“You haven’t even begun,” said Bek, in a 
voice of sharp rebuke. “ Go home and begin to be 
a success to-morrow.” 

“I shall never succeed,” she answered listlessly. 

“You will succeed better than if you do not try 
at all,” said Bek, energetically. 

“I suppose that’s logic. How the wind blows! 
I wish I knew that Julius were safe at home.” 

She seldom said “my husband.” 

“Do you remember what Mr. Dunraven preached 
about last Sunday?” she asked suddenly as she 
watched the movement of Bek’s needle. 

“No; Bertie had a cold and I did not go out.” 

“ You missed something. It was this, or some- 
thing like it: ‘Because ye did it not at the firsts 
the Lord our God made a breach upon us.’ 
God forgives us for not seeking His will at the 
first, but He punishes us by permitting us to suf- 
fer the consequences.” 

“ Yes,” said, Bek. 

“ That time, at the firsts can never come back 


268 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


to US. Do you remember bow I whispered to you 
that I was turning my first corner ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ I had decided then to do — what I did do.” 

“ In David’s case — it is about bringing the Ark 
home, isn’t it ? — it was made right afterward ; 
there was a festival sacrifice and great joy,” said 
Bek. 

“Yes, Uzza had been smitten in anger; he died 
before the Lord. There must have been grief 
about that — God’s forgiveness and teaching them 
how to bring the ark back did not bring Uzza 
back to life,” answered Gertrude, very gravely. 

“ It was because they did not even seek to 
learn God’s will about it.” 

“They did not at the first Oh, how those’ words 
are burned into me! We can only have the first 
once — ” 

“You can have the first as a wife,” comforted 
Bek, “there’s a first in everything, you know.” 

“ But you can have the first in the very begin- 
ning — you need not suffer for wilful sin at all, 
or for sin of ignorance.” 

“ I hope not,” was the earnest, almost vehement 
reply. “ If we set out to obey — we shall be led.” 

“You have set out to obey, that is why you 


AT THE FIRST. 


269 


succeed. I set out to do some grand thing — and 
I’ve done it.” 

The shoe was mended and laid away. Bek 
proposed music, but Gertrude said she could hear 
no music except the blowing of the wind. Bek 
fell asleep with the yellow head and warm cheek 
close to her face and the clinging arm about her 
neck. Gertrude slept fitfully; in her dreams she 
was out in the snow where the wind was blowing. 

In the morning Dr. Mason’s boy came for her; 
Dr. Prentiss could not come, he said evasively, 
and she asked no questions. At the door inco- 
herent motherly Mrs. Mason gathered her into 
hier arms, and bade her not be frightened, it 
would soon be all over, and it was such a mercy 
that his life was spared and the doctor would be 
a great deal kinder than his words, and they 
might stay until her husband was able to be 
moved. 

“Was he thrown?” asked Gertrude, calmly. 

“Yes, and a leg and arm broken — nobody 
knows how it happened. Gipsy rushed home 
with the sleigh in splinters, and the doctor and 
James went in search of him and found him in the 
snow, unconscious, and brought him home. He 
was delirious, and called for you, but I wouldn’t 


270 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


let them go for you and waken you out of sleep 
and frighten you. Don’t faint, dear, there’s no 
real danger and you mustn’t mind anything my 
husband says. It was a cold night, and I don’t 
believe he meant to take so much,” she said 
pityingly. 

It had come then, the disgrace she had dreaded; 
they would all know — she was a drunkard’s wife. 
At that instant, her own disgrace was more to her 
than her husband’s danger. She even turned im- 
patiently away from the weak moan that greeted 
her quiet entrance: 

“ 0, Gertrude, I am ashamed to look you in the 
face.” 


XVI. 

PLANS AND PEOMISES. 

“Strong reasons make strong actions.” — Shakespeabe. 

Bek stood at the kitchen table ostensibly breaking 
stale bread into crumbs for the purpose of making 
a bread pudding, but her fingers moved hesitat- 
ingly and her eyes were riveted upon something 
out of the window; she had been standing in 
this position several minutes not heeding the 
laughing voices nor the clattering of the break- 
fast dishes as the twins piled them upon the table 
preparatory to the ceremony of washing them. 
Chip had brought in the news about Dr. Pren- 
tiss, with the addition that the old doctor had 
told everybody that he would send him away 
as soon as he was able to be taken away. 

“ How can Gertrude live ? ” she had said to Miss 
Southernwood. 

But she was not thinking of her at this mo- 


272 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


ment; her father’s harassed face was in her mind, 
and his depressed, gloomy voice at the breakfast 
table. Every day was one day nearer and no 
help had come; she had looked around, now she 
was only looking up. 

“ Lulu ! ” cried Floy, “ look under the table ! 
You did not sweep clean yesterday.” 

“How could I when you were both standing 
there washing dishes? I did the best I could 
under the circumstances.” 

“Yes,” said Floy, demurely, “you swept under 
the circumstances instead of under the table.” 

The shout that greeted this repartee brought 
Bek back to herself 

Lulu with a scarlet sweeping cap drawn over 
her curls stood leaning on her broom; Floy in 
brown checked kitchen apron was flourishing 
a small mop in the wooden tub that held the 
steaming dish water, Nell, likewise arrayed, was 
laughing and vigorously rubbing a breakfast 
platter. Why should not the brown aprons al- 
ways spend the hour after breakfast in the kitchen ? 
And the hour before breakfast, also? Lulu was 
an excellent cake maker, her own bread was 
equal to Pauline’s; she had learned to iron — but 
the washing!' Her eyes grew doleful. But why 


PLANS AND PROMISES. 


273 


could not she and Lulu, with Chip to help about 
the water, sing the song of the suds together 
every Monday nlorning ? Ever since Pauline 
went away the wheels of the household machinery 
had moved without a jar. What a difference 
twelve dollars a month would make in her scanty 
household purse ? All the fall and winter she 
had been dressmaker and milliner for the family ; 
she willingly asked her father for money for the 
family or to supply any personal need of the chil- 
dren, but not once since her mother’s death had 
she made request for herself Her mother had 
always taken thought for her; she felt as if she 
must choke if she asked her father for money for 
nerself, and how she needed it her wardrobe bore 
ample testimony. She was glad that rubbers 
would conceal the condition of her shoes, and 
after drawing off her gloves to play in church, 
she held them in her hand hiding all their fingers 
from view. The money her father gave her was 
for the children, she morbidly reasoned, and 
would not spend one cent upon herself If 
Miss Southernwood’s Christmas gift had not been 
letter paper, stamps and envelopes, she wondered 
how she could ever have kept up her correspond- 
ence. Her father was grinding them all down 


274 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


to the barest necessities to save money; not at the 
table, however, that must be well spread for Miss 
Southernwood’s sake. What would they have 
done this winter without Miss Southernwood? 

Chip growled because he had to wear his old 
overcoat, short in the back and very short in the 
sleeves, and Lulu often looked worried, and the 
twins did not understand the pressure at all. For 
the first time Christmas had come with no money 
to spend for Christmas gifts; Miss Southernwood 
was the only one in the house who had made 
Christmas presents. The twins had cried them- 
selves to sleep Christmas eve. Lulu had wiped 
away a few tears, and poor little Bek, who felt 
every responsibility her own, had wondered if she 
might not have persuaded their father to give them 
something to keep holiday time with if she had 
been more persistent. But it was so hard to 
persist when he refused so decidedly and with so 
much irritation. Chip had muttered “ stingy ” 
both openly and under his breath, until a long 
talk with his father had silenced him and brought 
a look of anxiety to his clear boyish face. 

“Dear old Chip,” Bek had thought watching 
him afterward. 

But it must be good for them to bear the yoke 


PLANS AND PROMISES. 


275 


in their youth, only they were apt to be restive 
under it. 

“Girls! children,” she began, after regarding 
them for a moment or two, “listen! I have a 
plan.” 

“ Oh, good ! ” cried Floy. 

“Tell us quick,” cried Nell. 

“Work or play ?” questioned Lulu brandishing 
her broom. 

“ Plenty of both. Suppose we let Pauline stay 
with her sister.” 

“Pauline! Stay?'^ echoed Floy. 

“ And we all become Paulines,” suggested Lulu, 
dismally. 

“Oh, dear,” cried Nell, who hated washing 
dishes. 

“ Oh, dear me/" cried Floy, who hated setting 
the table, 

“ Oh, dear all of us,” cried Lulu with a comical 
groan, looking down at her pretty fingers. “ When 
shall I ever find time to write my history of all 
the ages ? ” 

“And when can we study?” asked Floy. 

“Or practice?” continued Nell. 

“And how can I peel potatoes and write 
poetry ? ” queried Lulu. 


276 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


“You needn’t — at the same instant,” laughed 
Bek. “I like to peel potatoes.” 

“I know it, you selfish old thing,” laughed 
Lulu, to hide the tremor in her voice. “You 
like to do everything, and you will always be 
sending us off. I won’t agree unless you will 
give me every other week — taking turns as house- 
keeper ! ” 

“ I certainly will,” promised Bek, “ for your sake 
as well as mine. You may cook ‘ Common Sense ’ 
all through if you will only be economical.” 

“Have we got to let her go?” inquired Nell, 
earnestly. “ She has always said she would stay 
until the last of us got married, and then she 
would go with you.” 

“Did she think I’d be the one to be left?” 
asked Bek, lightly, with a little shiver at her 
heart, however. “Give your vote. Do you all 
agree to my plan? We will be as regular as 
clock-work and as systematic as the solar system ; 
not a jar, nor a jolt in all our smooth running 
machinery. Plenty of work and plenty of study 
and fun ! ” 

“I agree,” said Lulu, promptly. “I know it 
must be necessary or you would not suggest it.” 

“ I’m getting tired of having her gone already.” 


FLANS AND PROMISES. 


277 


sighed Nell. “Floy and I were saying this 
morning how soon she’d be home.” 

“ I’m willing,” announced Floy, bravely. 

“ I’ll do the best I can,” still sighed Nell. 

“So will I,” promised Floy, slightly doleful. 

“Must we do all the work and never have 
anything new?” questioned Nell. 

“ When Fanny Green’s father died they had to 
sell the farm,” said Floy. “ I don’t mind getting 
poor a little bit if we may only keep the farm. 
I don’t know what I should do, though, if we 
had to go away from here. Mother said she 
hoped we would never go away.” 

Lulu glanced at Bek. Chip never could keep a 
secret from Lulu. 

“ Poor father,” said Lulu, the quick tears spring- 
ing to her eyes. 

“We’ll all keep sunshiny whatever we have to 
do,” said Bek, cheerily, “ for father’s sake and — for 
mother’s.” 

“ Chip will make the kitchen fire,” planned Lulu, 
“and churn and help us on Mondays.” 

“ Will father give us the money, though? ” asked 
Nell. 

“If he can spare it,” said Bek, hopefully. “I’ll 
talk to him about it.” 


278 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


“ How shall we divide it?” asked practical Nell. 

“ I know,” suggested Floy. “ Bek and Lulu four 
dollars each, that’s eight, and you and I two, that’s 
four, and eight and four make twelve.” 

“ But Chip,” remembered Lulu. “ For the churn- 
ing and the fire and helping Monday! ” said Lulu. 
“Yes, he must have something.” 

“ I’ll arrange it with him,” decided Bek. “ Thank 
you all for your cheerful co-operation.” 

“I’m not quite cheerful,” confessed Nell. 

Bek finished making her pudding and then 
wrapping herself in Lulu’s blue and green shawl 
went out to the barn in search of her father. 
Pausing in the barnyard a low sound as of a groan 
reached her; in an instant it had taken the form 
of words: 

“ 0 Lord, send us help, for Thy mercy’s sake.” 

How her heart echoed her father’s prayer I Si- 
lently she retraced her steps; an hour later her 
father entered the sitting-room where she sat 
mending a rent in Floy’s plaid afternoon dress. 
Floy was Bek’s twin; Lulu had always owned Nell. 
He sat down beside her, taking up a newspaper, 
and then dropped it to look at her. 

“Father, I have a plan to help you a little,” 
she began hurriedly. 


FLANS AND PROMISES. 


279 


“Well,” he responded, gloomily. 

He brightened considerably as she unfolded it 
and patted her hand as he used to pat her mother’s. 

“You are a good girl, Bekie — but you mustn’t 
be too sure of having the twelve dollars a month 1 
I owe Pauline a hundred dollars ! ” 

“Oh, do you?” exclaimed Bek. “Oh what 
shall we do?” 

“ I’ll pay her or give her my note — tell her that 
when she comes back.” 

“ I’ll write to her first — she would talk about 
mother and cry. and I could not bear that. Fa- 
ther, can’t you mortgage the farm and keep it 
awhile longer?” she asked, earnestly, nervously 
pricking her finger as she thrust the needle into 
her work. 

“ That would only be putting off the evil day,” 
he replied, thoughtfully. 

“But we can work and do without, and save 
the interest, and take a few boarders next sum- 
mer, and keep the evil day off until the twins are 
older and able to do something to help themselves; 
after a litPe while Lulu could be housekeeper and 
I could find something to do ; it will be easier to 
bear when we can all help along — and we might 
pay off the mortgage ! ” 


280 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


“ Never,” he exclaimed, emphatically, “ not with 
our expenses.” 

“ But will you think about it ? ” she asked anx- 
iously, “can’t you get the money?” 

“I don’t know where.” 

“Is it a great deal ? ” 

“It is a great deal for me to earn with my 
hands on this farm.” 

“How much is it?” 

“Over five thousand dollars.” 

“That 18 a great deal — when it takes one’s 
home away.” 

“ I trusted that man as though he had been 
my brother — it’s the first time I ever went se- 
curity for anybody; don’t it say something about 
it in the Bible?” 

“I hope so,” said Bek, “but will you think 
about the mortgage?” 

“ I have thought of it and decided not to do 
it. I could not sleep with a mortgage held over 
my head; it will be sure to foreclose.” 

“ Perhaps not. It would depend upon who 
held it. Somebody may be glad to have five 
thousand dollars in such a safe bank. The farm 
is certainly worth twice that amount; they would 
be fully secured. We would not be wronging any 


PLANS AND PROMISES, 


281 


one and we will pay the interest regularly even 
if we do without the necessities of life.” 

“Don’t worry, child, you shall not do without 
too much.” 

“Oh, I don’t mind, but the girls can’t help 
minding. You do not owe any one beside Pauline.?” 

“Not more than I can pay by selling off corn 
and hay! That is a good thought about taking 
a few boarders. It will not make much more 
work for you, and you could keep the house 
running and dress the children and yourself — 
Bek, child, don’t forget yourself. You don’t look 
as nice on Sundays as you used to. What’s the 
matter? ” 

“Oh, nothing,” answered Bek, coloring and 
speaking with effort, “but you know the girls 
are growing older and I want them to look 
well.” 

“Of course,” he answered, carelessly, “make 
yourselves look as neatly as you can, but don’t 
spend too much. And I’ll think about the mort- 
gage again, but I don’t know where to turn! 
Can’t you suggest some one?” 

“ Mr. Reynolds ! ” 

“ I’ve seen him. His money is well invested, 
he doesn’t want to make a change.” 


282 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


“Mrs. Harris.” 

“She’d foreclose five minutes before the time 
if she could.” 

Bek thought of Mr. Prentiss; he was reported 
to have money, but how could they apply to 
him ? 

“ Don’t people ever get money out of the 
bank?” she timidly suggested. 

He laughed and springing to his feet stood 
looking down into the perplexed face. 

“What a sharp little business woman she is! 
Don’t bold a bank over my head! Wouldn’t you 
sleep better in a house all our own ? Confess ! ” 

“If I were the only one that had to sleep in 
it,” she confessed, smiling, “ but the children 
love this place so — and mother loved it, and 
who knows but that we can get it back some 
day? If it passes out of our hands how could 
we get it back?” 

“I’ve been offered ten thousand for this.” 

“Only ten thousand,” she repeated. 

“It isn’t a large farm, child.” 

“Did that include the stock and other personal 
property ? ” 

“Of course not; we want something in our 
new home.” 


PLANS AND PROMISES. 


283 


“But the house is large — ” 

“ I have thought,” he interrupted, “ of taking 
all I could scrape together after the sale and 
going into the grocery business with Fairbanks; 
we’ll take Chip in, too; wouldn’t you like to 
live in Cumberland?” 

“But if you should fail what would we have 
left ? ” she asked quickly. 

“ I’d have my two hands,” he answered, grimly. 

“ I like Murphy’s better than that. There’s 
no anxiety connected with Murphy’s! It will 
be only homesickness. And if we have each 
other and are not in debt we can soon make it 
like home. And the children will learn not to 
mind. Father, I know you will do what is 
wisest and best,” she said looking up with faith 
in her eyes. 

“Even the grocery business,” he said smiling. 

“No; you will not do that,” she answered, 
confidently, “and I’ll try and prepare the twins.” 

“Not yet; I’ll think about the mortgage again. 
I confess I don’t know where to turn, and there’s 
so little time now. The money has got to be used 
or it might be arranged. Don’t fret about it, child. 
My children are all helpers and comforters. You 
are my child, too, you must remember.” 


284 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


He stooped to kiss her with the rare tears in 
his eyes. 

“Your mother was my blessing and you are 
just like her.” 

Who would not be happy after that? That 
afternoon she filled a sheet of foolscap to faith- 
ful Pauline. Pauline received the letter two 
days later and slept that night with it tucked 
under her pillow. 

“They’ll send for me, dear things, as soon as 
they get tired out,” she said as she fed her sister 
with beef tea, “and you want me just now, any- 
way. Miss Bek takes to kitchen-worh naturally, 
but the others don’t covet it. It will take more 
than four of them to do my work, they’ll find 
out. There’s plenty to do in that house beside 
kitchen-work and I’ll go back to them if I have 
to do all the work and pay my board besides. 
I’ve got fifteen hundred dollars saved up, so I 
can afibrd to work for nothing.” 


XVII. 


WEITTEN FEOM EOME. 

“Heaven is never deaf, but when man’s heart is dumb.” 

Quaeles. 

“0, Miss Southernwood.” 

It was the very tone in which Bek used to 
cry, “0, mamma,” or “0, mother.” 

Miss Southernwood’s mother-heart gave a bound; 
what did the name matter after all ? If “ Miss 
Southernwood” meant “mother,” why would it 
not do as well? It was really a sigh and Bek 
did not often sigh. 

“Well, child.” 

The reply was like her mother’s too. 

They were before the school-room fire. Bek 
was kneeling on the hassock and resting her 
head against Miss Southernwood’s shoulder; Miss 
Southernwood was leaning back in the spring rocker. 

“There’s something I want to know and I can’t 
know it; I can’t see one step ahead.” 


286 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


“Perhaps there isn’t any next step.” 

“ Oh, there must be ! ” said Bek hopefully. 

“ Perhaps you have come to the end.” 

“Oh, I know I haven’t,” she said confidently. 

“Then you do know something it seems.” 

“Yes,” she admitted. 

Bek needed no questioning; she was never at 
a loss for words. 

“There’s no one to tell me anything about 
it,” she continued after a long silence. 

“That is a strange thing; the strangest that 
has happened since God to Adam.” 

“But He doesn’t always speak.” 

“Then He keeps silent and that silence has a 
voice; it says, ‘Wait, don’t pry into things.’” 

Bek laughed somewhat nervously; that did 
seem like what she was trying to do. 

“I know enough to be kept in suspense, 
enough to worry me, but not enough to rest 
me.” 

“Then, I suppose, it must be right for you 
to worry.” 

“ Oh, Miss Southernwood, how practical you^ 
are ! ” 

“I thought you wanted something real.” 

“It is so hard to wait for an uncertainty.” 


WRITTEN FROM ROME. 


287 


“The will of God is always a certainty. Yon 
cannot be waiting for that.” 

“ Oh, I she cried earnestly, “ I’m sure I 

don’t want anything else. If it were to be pa- 
tient or gentle, or to have my sins forgiven, I 
could find a sure promise, but it is not like 
that; it is something selfish, all for myself, and 
yet it is not — It will make a great difference to 
several people.” 

“Does your suspense make a great difference 
to several people ? ” 

“No: only to myself! But, oh, it does make 
a great difference to me.” 

“ I suppose you pray about it.” 

“I’m almost afraid I pray too much about it; 
I’m afraid I worry before the Lord. I wish I 
hadn’t had to know anything about it.” 

“Then you would miss something to pray 
about; something to have faith about, and that 
would be a loss in itself” 

“ I don’t understand the difference — I can’t 
understand the difference between delay in an- 
swer to prayer, and denial.” 

Pencil and paper were always at hand; Miss 
Southernwood slowly traced a tall capital “N.” 

“ What am I writing ? ” 


288 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


“I can’t tell yet.” 

“Why?” 

“ Because it isn’t finished.” 

“ How do you know it isn’t finished ? ” 

“Because — ” her eyes brightening, “you keep 
your hand on.” 

“Is there any way for you to decide what it 
will be?” 

“I’ll watch your hand,” said Bek in a rever- 
ent tone, thinking of the Hand that she was 
watching. 

“Suppose I do not move my fingers but keep 
the pencil on ‘o.’” 

“Then I cannot tell until you do move.” 

“And it may be ‘no,’ or it may be any word 
of which that may be a prefix.” 

“ If it isn’t ‘ no,’ it may run on to not — yet 
Oh, now I see!” 

“You see, dear,” Miss Southernwood tossed 
the bit of paper into the fire, “ if God keep His 
pencil on a long time we are impatient and cry 
out that we do not understand. How do you 
know that He wishes you to understand any- 
thing except that you do not understand? He 
exacts many things of us, but foreknowledge 
is not one of them. You do not know many 


WRITTEN FROM ROME. 


289 


words that I might have written, so we can 
think of but two or three ways to answer 
prayer. No miracle in mathematics can count 
all the answers His wisdom might plan to give. 
If He keep His happenings at a standstill why 
should it not be to keep us ignorant? Who 
asks you know the diifference between delay 
and denial. He holds our fortune among His 
mysteries, but He is not a fortune-teller to re- 
veal to-morrow just because we cannot under- 
stand to-day.” 

“But if I am denied I want to know it, and 
not go on hoping and praying. I am only adding 
to my own disappointment.” 

“ Be sure you don’t do that ! If you think God 
must give what you want, and revel in it and 
build castles about it, and do not await His will 
before you plan your own plans, you are surely 
heaping up a disappointment for yourself But 
God will deal kindly with you, anyway.” 

“I know that.” 

“ If you do not waver in your asking His grace 
is being sufficient for you, and that is one answer 
in itself. Once Paul didn’t know, you remember, 
and how he prayed and prayed and kept on pray- 
ing. If he could attain to the knowledge that 


290 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


his long delay was not denial, why may not we ? 
‘Oftentimes I purposed,’ he writes, ‘but was let 
hitherto.’ Why did he not take his repeated hin- 
drances as a denial ? Perhaps there was no 
hindrance that time, and perseverance could not 
overcome.” 

“Mine has nothing to do with time and per- 
severance,” said Bek. 

“His latest prayer seems as joyfully sure and 
earnest as the first. It may be that he reasoned 
that if God intended to disappoint him He would 
not add to his disappointment by awakening the 
intense desire that long praying ever creates. 
He cared a thousand times more to go to Eoine 
than if he had never prayed unceasingly that he 
might go. If we are to exist as long as God 
exists we have as long a time to wait as He 
has to keep us waiting. Our patience is eternal, 
also. ‘ The greatest prayer is patience,’ is one of 
Buddha’s sayings.” 

“I’m not patient,” sighed intense Bek, “it is 
something I want to be and do, some time, not 
now, oh, not now, for anything — ” 

“ Then I can’t see where the suspense is — I 
can’t see where it is, for I have not travelled ‘ so 
far inland’ — but — ” 


WRITTEN FROM ROME. 


291 


“ It is a little hope, such a little hope ; and I’m 
ashamed that I do hope at all — and I may have 
no reason to, but it is such a perfect thing.” 

“I never yet had an experience that I could 
not find something among the things written 
aforetime to fit it; something that stood for it. 
Is your Bible on your desk?” 

“ Aurora Leigh ” was on the desk, and Tennyson, 
but the Bible was there also, and her precious “ Daily 
Food.” The journal — a marred and much perused 
thick book — was inside the desk. She had come 
to the time in her life when she could not give 
all of herself to its confidential pages; never be- 
fore had she written so meagrely of her inner life. 
It was not because the real life was less intense. 
She had got to the experience when words were 
not suffi-ciently expressive; there were a few in- 
cisive sentences, nevertheless, that cut sharp all 
the way through. 

She brought her Bible, wondering where Miss 
Southernwood would find any word to meet her 
present emergency. With an absorbed face Miss 
Southernwood turned the leaves, and bending 
over in the firelight Bek read the words, the 
few words her finger indicated: — “ Written from 
Borne'* 


292 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER, 


She read the words aloud disappointedly, dwell- 
ing on each syllable 

“ They are not among the inspired words, only 
something added by somebody to one of Paul’s 
letters.” 

“It contains a fact, however; one of God’s facts. 
Paul did write a letter from Kome.” 

“But I thought it would be a promise,” still 
with the disappointment in her voice. 

“That’s all. It is all in those words.” 

“I can’t see anything in those words,” not re- 
belliously or willfully. “ But it is only a dry fact ; 
as if I should say, ‘Written from Clovernook.’ ” 

“When I say ‘Written from Clovernook’ it 
means a great deal,” said Miss Southernwood. 

“I have looked all through the Bible for help, 
but in a whole lifetime I should never think of 
taking any comfort from that.” 

“ The words mean nothing to you, then.” Miss 
Southernwood shut the book and leaned back, 
Bek’s head came again to its resting-place. 

“Oh, how much they meant to Paul. He had 
written a letter from Kome at Imt I No one could 
know how long, how sore, and how sweet, too, 
was that at last ! You have not been waiting so 
very long ? ” 


WRITTEN FROM ROME. 


293 


“ No — o — only since last summer ! ” replied Bek, 
flushing and hiding her face a little. 

“ Paul had planned and hoped and prayed — how 
long do you think? Six months?” 

“A year, perhaps.” 

“Paul’s plan was not for his own sake, but 
for Christ’s sake.” 

“I think mine is — a little — for His sake,” said 
Bek, thinking how her mother had hoped to work 
in the Clovernook church for His sake. “It is 
for work that 1 love — it is not all selfishness — 
I might have thought of the work, I know I 
should, but I should not have thought of this 
way of doing it but for something — and of some- 
thing mother said, beside; so I can’t help hoping 
and praying. And not knowing something that 
I shall know by and by keeps me unsettled. 
Sometimes I wonder why God let me know a 
little and not all.” 

“To try your faith and to make you ready 
for that or something else. God makes us ready 
to go west sometimes by sending us east. It 
is never safe to think we know God’s plan.” 

“ Isn’t it ?” asked Bek, gravely. “I have been 
thinking that I did know.” 

“Don’t think so any longer. He is glad for 


294 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


US to plan when we plan for Christ’s sake, but 
He may upset our plans all the same.” 

“ Did He upset Paul’s plan ? ” 

“ Not really — but He kept him waiting and 
gave him faith to keep on hoping. Twenty-five 
years after Jesus met him in the way He came 
to him in the night and comforted him about 
his heart’s desire.” 

“ I should give up long before twenty-five 
years ! ” 

“Not if the hope came from God. I am not 
afraid, you will hold on as long as Paul did if 
God keep you holding on. When Jesus came 
that time in the night He promised him that he 
should go to Kome.” 

“Oh, how good,” cried Bek, impulsively. 

“ Good that he might have his heart’s desire ! 
Not good that the Lord came to speak to him? 
Pm afraid you are thinking more of your heart’s 
desire than you are of Him.” 

“I’m afraid so, too,” Bek acknowledged. “If 
He should enter this room now I should want 
to fall at His feet and ask Him to let me do 
what I want to do, and not think, at first, to 
thank Him for forgiving my sins, or for being 
so good as to come to speak to me. Oh, how 


WRITTEN FROM ROME. 


295 


wrong I am ! ” she sighed. “ I don’t believe 
anybody was ever so wicked before. The other 
day when Mr. Dunraven was talking about the 
second coming of Christ, do you know what I 
was thinking? I hardly dare tell you. 1 was 
thinking that I did not want Him to come until 
I have time to live out some of my plans. I 
am so self-willed ! And I have believed that 
I wanted no way but His way.” 

“ Poor child ! dear child,” comforted her friend, 
“ I have travelled your way, I know all about it. 
I feel almost sure that God will take pains to 
teach you that His way is best.” 

“I’m willing,” Bek almost sobbed. 

“ There’s nothing like an obedient to-day to 
reveal God’s will to-morrow. Paul was kept two 
years in prison after Jesus told him that he might 
go to Eome.” 

How little her six months began to seem! 

“About that time Paul wrote a letter to Rome, 
speaking thus strongly of his burning desire to 
see them : ‘ Without ceasing I make mention of 
you always in my prayers.’ It is good to send 
prayers ahead to make way for our reception and 
our work: ^Making request,’ he writes, ‘if, by 
any means, now, at length, I might have a 


296 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


prosperous journey by the will of God to come 
to you.’ He says: ‘Oftentimes 1 purposed to 
come to you.’ Eemember the oftentimes. And 
then he was sent in a ship with other prisoners: 
‘ And when we had sailed slowly many days,’ 
writes the historian. That is what you do not 
like: sailing slowly many days.” 

“ After he was fairly on the way, too,” exclaimed 
Bek. 

“As if he had not been on the way all the 
time ! All this waiting, working, hoping, praying 
time ! God was not in a hurry even if Paul were. 
And you remember he was shipwrecked and passed 
three months on an island after all that time of 
sailing slowly, of being imprisoned and of having 
to testify at Jerusalem. But he reached Kome 
at last; after a journey that was not prosperous 
as we count prosperity. And there in his own 
‘hired house’ he wrote his letters from Kome!” 

Both pairs of eyes were full. How many days 
of sailing slowly Bek would need before she might 
go to Kome. And then the Kome might not be 
the Kome she had chosen; not even the Kome 
she prayed unceasingly about. Miss Southern- 
wood wrote her letters from Kome; the Kome 
where God had placed her, not in the Kome of 


WRITTEN FROM ROME. 


297 


her old age that she had once dreamed and 
prayed about. 

This pleasant home that Bek was praying that 
she might keep for the children’s sake, was one 
of her heart’s desires, but a stronger one, one that 
she thought of the last thing at night and the 
first thing in the morning, was the work, the 
love, the help that Mr. Prentiss’ words to her 
mother had suggested; the blessed being “provided 
for” that had comforted her mother’s last days. 
For how could God let her believe anything that 
was not true? 


God’s plans like lilies pure and white unfold. 


XVIII. 


SHAKING UP. 

“How shall we gauge the whole, who can only guess a part? ” 

“Whom do you think has co^me?” shouted Floy, 
rushing into the school-room after silence had 
fallen between the two. “You never can guess! 
It’s Miss Prentiss! She just came in the stage. 
And she has a cold and she’s going to stay until 
it gets well.” 

“Then I hope it will never get well,” laughed 
Bek, “this is a surprise.” 

Every face around the tea-table was bright- 
ened, and they kept Janet talking unceasingly 
despite her hoarseness and frequent cough; the 
twins were interested in the little girls with 
scarlet fever; especially in the younger one who 
found the scissors and began to clip Janet’s beau- 
tiful hair early one morning, before she was 
awake, and who insisted upon giving her doll 
medicine by taking her head between her knees 


SHAKING UP. 


299 


and holding her nose, as Miss Prentiss had been 
compelled to force her own medicine down more 
than once when she had stoutly resisted; and 
how they all laughed at the remark of the little 
boy who insisted upon kneeling by the bedside 
to say his prayers. 

, “ You can as well kneel in bed,” Janet told him. 

“ I don’t think that would be very polite" he 
replied. 

“ I thought you only went among poor peo- 
ple,” said Floy. 

“ 1 have learned that the rich need care and 
nursing as well as the poor; I go wherever I 
am needed.” 

“ I like that,” said Mr. Maurice heartily. 

“ That’s the way I shall do,” commented Eulu. 

“Lulu! what’s the matter with your hair?” 
inquired her father. “You are changed and 
what is it?” 

“I’m tired of being a little girl, that’s all,” she 
answered, seriously, “ so I’ve braided my hair. 
I intend to do it always after this.” 

“It is certainly very becoming,” said Janet. 

It was braided and bound around her head, 
the curls escaping over her forehead somewhat 
in Bek’s pretty fashion. 


300 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


“You look three years older,” declared her 
father. 

“ I’m glad of that,” returned Lulu, contentedly. 
“I’m getting old enough to go with Janet.” 

“My brother John says you must not,” said 
Janet, looking with admiring eyes upon the 
sweet, girlish face. 

Middle-aged women love girls and Janet was 
almost middle-aged. 

“ That reminds me ! I have two sheets of fools- 
cap to read to you. He’s becoming terribly un- 
settled, this brother of mine ; speaks of making me 
a visit this spring and of taking in Clovernook.” 

“Oh, delightful,” cried Lulu. “I have been 
salting down some questions to ask him.” 

Conscious Bek colored uncomfortably and has- 
tened to sprinkle sugar over Bertie’s bread and 
milk. It was a hard experience for the girl : this 
suspense about something that she never would 
have thought of for herself; only that she was the 
kind always to be ready for every new experi- 
ence. Lulu was ready for the next thing to do. 
Bek was ready for the next thing to 5e. Lulu’s 
world was everywhere; Bek’s world was one 
that she created for herself. Lulu, therefore, 
was ready for usefulness; Bek was being made 


SHAKING UP. 


301 


ready. The girls had hardly made themselves 
to differ; Lulu, consciously had left herself in 
God’s hands; Bek, unconsciously, had taken her- 
self into her own hands. People who loved 
Lulu were shy with Bek. Miss Prentiss loved 
Lulu, but she was not shy with Bek. 

Her brother had confided to her that he de- 
sired to make one of the sisters his wife; but 
he would not reveal his preference. She had de- 
cided instantly that it was Bek, with some mis- 
giving, perhaps; Lulu seemed so perfectly fitted 
to his every mood and phase of feeling, and then — 
Bek might be a treasure as his wife, but, oh, 
what a rare worker Lulu might become in his 
parish. She had both the consecration and the 
•push. But she did not tell him so; for how could 
he see with her eyes? 

“I have some questions to ask him,” said Janet, 
“ I want a talk about money -matters. Mr. Ryer- 
son is not satisfied with the investment of a few 
thousands of mine and counsels me to make a 
change. He counsels bond and mortgage; he 
wants me to take the first mortgage on some real 
estate that pays. Somebody’s farm, for instance. 
But you farmers are all in too easy circumstances 
for that, Mr. Maurice?” 


302 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


Bek’s eyes met his. 

Mr. Maurice set down his tea-cup deliberately; 
the flash in his eyes had answered Bek’s. 

“I was counting the mortgaged farms in our 
vicinity to-day, and it was appalling.” 

“ I don’t want anything to do with a mort- 
gaged farm.” 

“No; you want to burden some poor fellow 
with a mortgage and worry the flesh off his 
bones to get your interest.” 

“ It would certainly give me something to do 
when I get out of typhoid cases and the after 
care of surgical operations.” 

“It might be a surgical operation in itself,” 
he answered lightly, “and you would be sure 
to sell him out to go to Europe with it or for 
a marriage portion.” 

“ I might if I hadn’t something beside. John 
and I have city property that will do that for 
us. You may represent me as merciful; I want 
nothing but the interest for the next twenty 
years — if I live; if I die, John’s church is -to 
have it. My heart is in that church.” 

“And yet you ran away from it,” said Mr. 
Maurice. 

“Yes, I knew John would never seek a wife 


SHAKING UP. 


303 


to help him as long as he had me, and I do 
approve of mothers for boys and wives for men.” 

“Is your plan working well?” inquired Mr. 
Maurice, laughing. 

“You will see,” she answered sagely. 

Naughty Bertie kicked his boot off at that in- 
stant and Bek stooped to find it. 

“You might tell us,” coaxed Lulu. “I don’t 
know of any one good enough and wise enough 
and lovely enough for him, do you?” 

“She. would learn to be with him,” said Miss 
Southernwood intent upon her peach. 

Mr. Maurice was unusually silent during the 
evening; he made a pretence of reading the news- 
paper, but Bek noticed that his eyes wandered 
from it continually. 

“Mr. Kyerson came up with me in the stage,” 
Miss Prentiss remarked to Miss Southernwood, 
“ he will stay over Sunday at the Parsonage and 
I want him to see you ; how shall I manage it ? ” 

“I shall go to church.” 

• “Yes, but I want you to talk to each other 
He must return to his desk and high stool Mon 
day morning — he’s another Charles Lamb in his 
self-forgetfulness and in his love of literature — 
and I want him to sing some of the grand old 


304 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


hymns with us. Mr. Maurice, may I bring him 
home from church to-morrow evening ? He is 
one of those people who cannot intrude. I want 
the girls to see my hero.” 

“ I am sorry you think you need ask me, Miss 
Janet,” replied Mr. Maurice. “How could any 
friend of yours be unwelcome?” 

“ Thank you. He is a part of the Sunday quiet 
and Sunday rest. When I tell John that the min- 
istry has lost a hard worker he always says that 
the laity hasn’t, so I have to be content. I am 
always glad to say to my friends that I know a con- 
secrated life that is not among the ministers. He 
fairly bubbles over with life and- fun — but he is 
often too shy to give the best of himself He is 
shy enough to be a genius ; but he isn’t. Lulu, he 
is as delightfully commonplace as my brother 
John. You have both seen him?” 

“ At church ! ” said Lulu. “ He is tall and broad- 
shouldered, with eyes as blue as Bertie’s and 
yellow hair and yellow moustache. He looks like 
Hengist and Horsa. He played one Sunday when 
Bek was not there and he came into Sunday 
school and took Bek’s class. The superintendent 
asked him to address us, but he laughed and said, 
unlike most people, he could practice better than 


SHAKING UP. 


305 


he could preach. Bek doesn’t think he’s hand- 
some. I’m so glad you’ll bring more people into 
our world, Miss Janet. I never can know people 
enough, but I believe Bek would be content never 
to see another new face.” 

“ I’m afraid I would,” said Bek, “ and it’s bad 
in me.” 

“It is bad in you,” replied Miss Southernwood 
energetically. “ Janet, I’m thinking of sending 
Bek home with you. She needs shaking up.” 

“Mrs. Wilcox and the children would be only 
too happy. I am away so much that they make 
festivals of my days at home. And Mark would 
play for her all the evening long and read another 
evening long. Mrs. Wilcox is an invalid and the 
children are sometimes troublesomely human, but 
there is an atmosphere of rest about the house for 
all that.” 

“ Who is Mark ? ” asked Lulu, “ some big boy.” 

“Yes, he is very like a big boy. He is your 
Saxon king. Mark Ryerson’s mother married^ the 
second time when he was a little boy- — he and 
Norris were twins — and the children are Norris’s 
orphan children. They live in an old house in 
the suburbs; when Mrs. Wilcox dies it goes to her 
husband’s heirs. The only sister, Mary Wilcox, 


306 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


is married in California and that’s all the family 
history.” 

Mary Wilcox in California ! She must be the 
one who sent her letter to New York ! Oh, that 
letter! The blessing and the shame of it 1 But 
she could not run away from Mr. Kyerson; she 
must bear his eyes and talk to him and forget. It 
was such a little thing and so long ago, perhaps 
he had forgotten all about it already. But why 
must she be reminded of it? That was “at the 
first” and she had tried to do just right. One 
thing she knew: Janet and Miss Southernwood 
should not beguile her into meeting him every 
day. For how could she bear to be reminded 
every day of something that she was learning to 
forget ? 

She had wondered once if, in Heaven, the saints 
could forget all their hard times on earth; now 
she knew they did forget them, for even in the 
kingdom on the earth how many little hard times 
she'Jfed forgotten ? Or, if remembered, they were 
remembered to be glad of. 


XIS. 


ONE SUNDAY. 

God writes straight on crooked lines, ’’—Spanish Peovekb. 

“Work is not as precious as love; work for Christ 
is not always love to Christ.” 

It was Sunday morning and Mr. Dunraven was 
speaking. These words were every word that Bek 
heard of the sermon; but they were enough to 
break her heart; to break the heart ready to 
break. The words she had spoken to Miss 
Southernwood with such quiet intensity, like a 
flash of light, had revealed her heart to her. 
She had said that if Christ should enter the 
room and stand before her and she shou^^all 
at His feet, her first thought would not*' beTof 
Himself, but of herself, of some plan, some 
work of her own; and she knew only too well 
what plan and what work ! She was ashamed, 
oh how she was ashamed, but it was a shame 


308 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


that brought contrition. It was no marvel that 
in the rush of shame and penitence, in the eager 
prayer for forgiveness, she heard no more. Her 
heart was at His feet, now, not filled with herself; 
but filled with Himself. Her hopes — even this 
hope that had not come of itself, her plan, even 
this plan of her own, might crumble away and 
she be left with nothing to do of her own choos- 
ing, she would be satisfied. Love would be left, 
submission would be left. Very still and subdued 
she was all that day; but more joyful than she 
had ever been in her life. Could she be born 
again — ^twice 

Lulu told Miss Southernwood that Bek had 
an illumination in her eyes. 

Had not Mr. Kyerson’s name been mentioned 
in her presence that day she would have for- 
gotten that he was to come at night and make 
her uncomfortable. He was not at Sunday 
school; she drew a breath of relief upon finding 
that the dreaded introduction was postponed, but 
the thought of it all came with full force when 
she overheard Miss Dunraven remark to some 
one that Mr. Eyerson had gone to condole with 
Dr. Prentiss. With considerable nervousness she 
looked forward to the evening and decided to 


ONE SUNDAY. 


309 


remain at home with Bertie, but this was over- 
ruled by Janet who was afraid of the night air. 

“And Bertie likes me and my stories,” she 
urged. 

Bek flushed but did not demur. She was stand- 
ing alone at the organ before service, touching the 
keys lightly with one hand, when she felt a pres- 
ence beside her. 

“We do not need any one to speak our names 
to each other.” 

She had never heard Mr. Kyerson’s voice but 
this voice was like Janet’s picture of him. She 
raised her eyes shyly: no words were at com- 
mand; the kindly laughing eyes became grave 
instantly. 

“I wonder if you will let me play for you to- 
night.” 

“Thank you; my Angers trembled for fear of 
you this morning. I wanted Lulu to play, but 
she laughed at me.” 

“That was wise. Where is Miss Janet to- 
night ? ” 

“Staying with Bertie.” 

There was a choking in her throat and. her 
fingers were cold. He seated himself at the 
organ and she turned away to speak to Miss 


310 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


Dunraven. The illumination in her eyes was 
clouded. 

“How did you find Julius, Mr. Kyerson?” 
inquired Miss Dunraven. 

“Very penitent, very weak, full of high re- 
solves, and determined to go off as soon as he 
is able.” 

“And Gertrude?’ 

The moved tenderness in his eyes was as much 
as Bek could bear. Her own tears started. 

“Poor child,” he said. 

And that “poor child” might have been ut- 
tered for her! 

“ A wounded spirit, who can bear ? I shall be 
surprised if she live three months,” he added. 

“ She won’t die 1 ” said Miss Dunraven decid- 
edly. “ She will find something better to do. 
She says they will go to her mother’s and her 
determination will win the battle. All that Ju- 
lius needs is for some one to decide for him. 
He is one of those natures that nefed a father 
or a policeman to keep them in order.” 

Bek almost laughed aloud; if she had not 
laughed she would have burst into hysterical tears. 

The illumination came back to her eyes dur- 
ing the sermon and a blessed hush fell upon her 


ONE SUNDAY. 


311 


spirit. To render the day more than ever one 
of remembrance she caught a word from her 
father as he grasped the minister’s hand after 
the sermon: 

“ I thought I was too great a sinner to be 
saved, dominie, but I’ve begun to hope.” 

They crow^ded themselves into the roomy sleigh 
and glided over the snow, under the light of the 
stars a silent little company. The twins were the 
only ones who seemed to find any thing to say. 
Bek had found nothing to say, but she found 
enough to sing when Mr. Eyerson sat down at 
the piano. Miss Southernwood looked at Janet 
and smiled as Bek poured out her soul in the 
grand old hymns. She had had her “shaking 
up.” 

The fervor with which Mr. Maurice sang “ Kock 
of Ages” touched them all. Floy asked for “Je- 
rusalem the Golden,” for mamma’s sake. 

“ Miss Lulu ! ” said Mr. Eyerson, “ you have 
the voice to move men’s hearts and to sing 
children to sleep.” 

“Oh, have I?” she returned unaffectedly. “Per- 
haps tha^ will help me find -my, vocation.” 

“Is that what you are seeking just now?” 

“Yes; and I haven’t a hint of what it is to 


312 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


be. Bek’s vocation is always the first thing she 
finds to do. If this house needed painting, she 
would begin to paint to-morrow as though she were 
born to do it. But I don’t want to do every- 
thing; I want to do something." 

“Like Janet?” he said smiling at Janet. 

“ Yes, but they won’t let me,” she answered 
ruefully. 

The talk between Miss Southernwood and Mr. 
Eyerson was something to listen to. Mr. Mau- 
rice listened, nodding his appreciation once in 
a while. Lulu’s cheeks were aflame and her 
eyes aglow as she interjected a question, or 
gave enthusiastic assent, Bek sat apart near her 
father, with the hush upon her spirit and the 
soft light in her eyes. Janet made a remark 
about a wonderful answer to prayer that had 
come within her experience and the twins begged 
her to tell the story. 

“ I have not seen the lady, but I have received 
several letters from her, and I can vouch for the 
truth of her story. She was very ill for years — 
three or four — and had many physicians; as she 
could not retain medicine the physicians began 
to inject morphine into her veins. She could 
not sit up at all ; the doctor carried her from 


ONE SUNDAY. 


313 


one bed to another. A reclining chair was pur- 
chased for her, but she could not use it. She 
became helpless, the pain was so agonizing that 
she was forced to use morphine incessantly. By and 
by she began to hope that she might be healed 
in answer to prayer. Man’s help had proved 
unavailing; she had no hope but in God. Friends 
came and prayed with her; she attempted to rise 
in bed, and then made an effort to take a few 
steps and found that to her faith it had become 
possible ; she sat up half an hour and then walked 
back to her bed without assistance. She had 
been in the habit of using morphine five or six 
times during the twenty-four hours and the 
physicians declared she would die without it. 
She gave it up entirely, grew stronger by the 
day, and now walks half a mile to church. She 
has visited a friend of mine who is also being 
healed by faith.” 

“ Oh, how wonderful ! ” exclaimed NelL 

“How splendid,” cried Floy. 

“Is that all you know?” asked Lulu. 

“No, indeed. Sometime I’ll show you letters 
from several friends who believe that Christ is 
on the earth to-day as truly as He was on the 
earth eighteen hundred years ago.” 


314 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


Nell’s face flushed; Floy’s eyes filled with 
tears. 

After a 'little while Mr. Maurice excused him- 
self and went out to the dining-room fire to read 
his wife’s Bible, the twins said good-night, Janet 
disappeared and Lulu followed; Bek lingered, lis- 
tening from her sofa corner. 

“ Miss Southernwood ! How unconventional we 
have been ! ” Mr. Kyerson exclaimed. “You have 
been talking to me as though I were one of your 
girls instead of a broad-shouldered, moustached 
fellow.”. 

“ It’s queer about that,” laughed Miss Southern- 
wood, “but I have learned that moustaches and 
frizzes and crimps are not so unlike in their needs 
and longings; here you are, with your experience 
of life, your knowledge of men, your aspirations 
after great things — and here is little Bek with her 
inexperience of life, her ignorance of men, and her 
aspiration after what you might call small things, 
both asking the same questions.” 

“And we shall both solve this puzzling problem, 
our own life, in the same way,” he returned. 

“I hope you will,” said Miss Southernwood in 
her sweet, wise voice. 

“ Miss Bek, what is your puzzle now ? ” he asked. 


ONE SUNDAY. 


315 


appealing to the dark green figure in the sofa 
corner. 

“ My puzzle is,” she answered slowly, “ whether 
God ever lets us believe a thing that is not true, 
believe it and thank Him for it.” 

“ That is not a puzzle to me,” he said quickly, 
“ that was solved for me once.” 

Oh, do you know ? ” she questioned eagerly. 

“ Yes, I know. I believed once that He had 
surely given me a thing that I wanted as men 
sometimes want but once in a lifetime, and I took 
courage and thanked Him. And He gave it to 
some one else.” 

There was no bitterness, no hardness, no disap- 
pointment in his tone. Bek could scarcely believe 
it; there must be some mistake. 

“And then?” 

“And then — ” he repeated. 

“ But He let you thank Him,” she said, uncon- 
vinced, “and He knew He had not given it to 
you.” 

“Yes.” 

“That seems — hard.” 

“So it does.” 

“ Was it hard ? ” 

“Very hard, at first.” 


316 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


“ 1 cannot understand,” she said, with her usual 
little frown. 

“Neither can 1.” 

“Hasn’t He given you anything better?” 

“Not yet.” 

“Then you do not know why it was.” 

“No.” 

“Perhaps you will know some time.” 

“ Perhaps I may never know. I am willing to 
wait until I do know. Somehow I never care to 
know why God does such things: 1 am sure it is 
all right. I don’t care to know why it is all right. 
I do not sympathize with people who are anxious 
to discover God’s whys and wherefores.” 

“You have learned that you would have been 
miserable with it — that means less happy than 
with something else; but you do not know why 
God let you believe that He had given it to you 
and why He let you believe enough to thank Him.” 

“If I believed it at all I had to thank Him,” he 
answered simply. 

“ But He let you believe.” 

“Yes; and I do not even care to know why.” 

“ I shall care to know why,” she said seriously. 

“Perhaps you would not understand if He 
should make it plain,” he returned. 


ONE SUNDAY. 


317 


“ No — ” she hesitated, “ but I do begin to under- 
stand why you had such an experience.” 

‘‘Why?” 

“That you might help me. Perhaps that is 
all the reason — that you may assure some one 
else that no strange thing has befallen them.” 

“ That is worth while then. I have told you some- 
thing that I never have revealed to any one else.” 

“Perhaps no one else needs it.” 

“Miss Southernwood, do you?” he asked with 
a laughing light in his eyes. 

“ No,” she said gravely, “ I have lived longer 
than you both and in that experience you are be- 
yond me.” 

It was an experience, Bek knew. And now 
— and now that might not be true, this thing she 
was hoping for; the believing it and giving thanks 
for it did not prove it true. For the second time 
Mr. Kyerson had been her helper. 

“ Mr. Ryerson,” she began bravely, but with her 
own consciousness it was not easy to finish, “ do 
you — do you expect to see the rest of it ? ” 

“ To have something that I believe He has given 
me and that I have thanked Him for? I most 
assuredly do. And something better than that 
other thing.” 


318 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


“ Not better in itself, it may be, but better for 
you,” added Miss Southernwood. 

Lulu had flitted in and was standing leaning 
over Bek’s sofa arm. 

“ Oh, you mystical, mystical people,” she laughed. 

“Mr. Kyerson, I like the way you take life,” 
said Bek. 

“So do I,” he returned, teasingly. “I have a 
good deal to take.” 

Lulu said afterward: “Mr. Prentiss stands 
above you, but Mr. Ryerson stands beside you.” 


XX. 


NOT TRUE, THEN. 

“With God go over the sea — without Him, not over the 
threshold.” — Eussian Peoveeb. 

Bek was in the kitchen bending over the stove 
making a stew for dinner; it was savory even it 
it was economical, and Janet and Miss Southern- 
wood would not miss the roast because she had 
a delicious dessert; the queen of puddings. 

Her cheeks were flushed with the heat of the 
stove and the moist locks on her forehead were 
curled like the rings of a baby’s hair; there were 
two upright lines in the forehead concealed by 
the rings of hair, for, at this instant, she was 
counting how few weeks — almost how few days 
there were left for work in the dear, old kitchen. 

“Oh, dear,” she sighed unconsciously, giving 
the stew a listless stir. 

Another ejaculation, a triumphant one, greeted 
her as she crossed the kitchen. 


320 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


“Well! Well! Well! Bek!” 

“ Sir,” answered Bek, startled out of her reverie. 

“ I’ve done it ! It’s done ! Or it will be as 
soon as the business can be settled. Miss Janet 
professes to be relieved to get the money into safe 
hands, and to-day you will eat your dinner on a 
mortgaged farm and to-night you will sleep under 
a mortgaged roof” 

“ I’m so glad ! ” Bek manned to say. 

Her heart was beating wildly. Was the old 
home saved for awhile? And she need not tell 
the twins? Had the trouble passed by in the 
dark so that they need not know it? It was 
pleasant to have their home in Janet’s hands if 
it must be in somebody’s hands. 

“Now, Bek, for hard work and saving,” he cried 
jubilantly. 

“ I’m ready for both,” said Bek. 

“She wishes to board with us three months 
every summer ; that will make the interest 
lighter.” 

“What a friend she is!” 

“ But not to her own detriment,” returned Mr. 
Maurice, proudly, “ I would not allow that. Her 
money is as safe as though it were in government 
bonds.” 


NOT TRUE, THEN 


321 


“Yes,” assented Bek. 

“ Ryerson knew of my trouble ; I have an idea 
he sent her here.” 

“He didn’t give her the cold,” laughed Bek, 
“ and she promised mother she would always come 
here to be nursed.” 

“ I am relieved ! ” he exclaimed, pacing the 
kitchen floor, “ it was going through deep waters 
to me to lose this place. Now the question is 
how we are to pay off the mortgage. Chip and 
I can do all the work here, hiring occasionally 
when we are pressed. But we’ve got to save and 
to earn somehow.” 

“ If we were four boys instead of four girls,” said 
Bek, beginning to open a can of Pauline’s tomatoes. 

“ Girls can do without if they can’t earn,” was 
the sententious reply. 

Hard work and doing without! And a mort- 
gaged farm ! But she did not sigh. She enjoyed 
hard work, there was a sort of glory in the self- 
denial of doing without, and the mortgage — the 
precious old home was saved and in Janet’s 
hands I They all had good health, good spirits 
and faith ! The money would come from some- 
where; the indefinite somewhere was God. The 
two little upright lines disappeared, light feet 


322 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


tripped about the old kitchen floor, and when 
Floy ran down from the school-room to set the 
dinner table she found Bek ready for a two 
minutes’ romp around the dining-room. 

This was a continuance of good things; Bek 
hardly knew when the good things began; the 
best thing of all was that at the spring com- 
munion her father confessed his faith in Christ. 
It was like him to be zealous; immediately he 
became a worker in the church. 

Mr. Prentiss took his vacation early that year; 
he spent the month of May at Clovernook. Janet 
grumbled about being brought into the country 
before July, but she yielded with a good grace 
and came to Beulah (as she had named the farm) 
three days after Mr. Prentiss took up his abode 
at the Parsonage. Mr. D unraven submitted to be 
sent away, and Mr. Prentiss filled the pulpit 
during his absence. Gertrude Prentiss and her 
husband — his friends did not often say Julius and 
his wife — left Dr. Mason’s early in the same month 
and settled down in Gertrude’s home. 

Mrs. Kaymond died before the month ended; 
grandfather found a home with another daughter ; 
and the farm, by right of inheritance, became 
Gertrude’s. The house was old and very plainly 


NOT TRUE, THEN. 


323 


furnished, but the eighty acres were valuable; the 
farmer who had had charge of it since Mr. Ray- 
mond’s death continued to reside in the little 
house upon the place and to do his work thor- 
oughly, with due regard to his mistress’s interest. 

“I must look up a practice by and by,” Dr. 
Prentiss observed often as he yawned over his 
novel. But the hammock, a novel and a daily 
drive to Cumberland became more and more his 
only occupations. The hammock and the novel, 
Gertrude learned to bear, but the daily drive be- 
came insupportable. All her remonstrances and 
entreaties were in vain ; if she rebelled against his 
drive he would store his liquor away in the house, 
he threatened. 

“I must have it,” he urged, “it is not a new 
thing — although I have broken off a dozen times; 
I have drunk more or less since I was eighteen 
years old.” 

Her heart did not break; as Miss Dunraven 
had prophesied, she found something to do. What 
a month this home-coming was to her! And what 
a month this month of May was to the girls and 
Miss Southernwood at Beulah. A daily visit from 
Mr. Prentiss was a matter of course, and when 
the daily visit was in the morning, he supple- 


324 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


merited it by a call in the evening. Lulu’s ques 
tions were all answered and yet there ever re- 
mained more to be asked. He told his sister and 
Miss Southernwood that Lulu’s part of the con- 
versation consisted in telling him stories and 
asking him questions. And Bek’s ? Bek was 
changed this summer; the frank, free intercourse 
of last summer was shadowed by a reserve that 
was trying; she often asked him a question, but 
she seldom told him a story. She was herself, 
her easy, charming, unaffected, self-forgetful self 
to every one beside himself; she had new duties 
this summer, but it did not seem necessary that 
she should so persistently keep herself in the 
background. With Mr. Ryerson she was as 
much herself as she was with his sister or Miss 
Southernwood; was she disappointed in him? 
Her ideal of a Christian minister was very high; 
he must have fallen below her standard and yet 
— how she listened when he talked with others! 
It was incomprehensible, he would not question 
Janet; he was hurt and disappointed. Lulu was 
rare and radiant in every mood; he called her 
Lulukin and brought her flowers and books and 
took her to drive, but dignified little Bek was 
unapproachable. 


NOT TRUE, THEN. 


325 


“ Bek admires Mr. Ryerson,” said Lulu one 
day, “they seem to help and understand each 
other.” 

“Yes,” he returned absently, “I think they do.” 

In his next sermon was a thought that Bek pon- 
dered long: “We need to be humbled, sometimes, 
before our prayers can be answered.” 

Three days afterward he went away; his va- 
cation was ended. Bek was busy when he came 
to say good-bye, but he found her in the dining- 
room stoning raisins for Lulu’s cake. Chip was 
bending over her, teasing her, and that may 
have brought unusual color to cheek and brow, 

“I thank you for everything you have said 
and done,” she said gratefully. “Janet and Lulu, 
and all of us, have so enjoyed your sermons.” 

“Is that all I am — a sermon ? ” he asked half 
laughing, “can’t you separate me from my ser- 
mons and think of me — as I am ? ” 

“ I don’t know how you are,” she laughed 
confusedly, “I cannot separate you from your 
work.” 

“Do you always think of me in the pulpit?” 
he asked, startled. 

“Oh, no. I’ve seen you go fishing, I’ve seen 
you holding the plough, I’ve seen you on horse- 


326 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


back: IVe seen you doing very commonplace 
things.” 

“And yet you only thank me for my sermons,” 
he said disappointedly. 

“Oh, yes,” she said, with the old saucy sparkle, 
“ I thank you for eating my bread and for bring- 
ing in coal to bake it with.” 

She was like herself now that he was going 
away. 

“Janet is to drive me to the depot: I wish 
you might go too.” 

“ I am housekeeper this week, and Mrs. Wilcox 
and the children and nurse are coming to-day.” 

“Is this hard work good for you?” he asked 
anxiously; “it seems to me there’s a little dent 
in the roundness of your cheek that was not 
there a month ago.” 

“She’s getting a dimple,” interposed Chip. 

“ I’ll laugh and sing it away,” she said lightly. 

“You are twenty-four this summer, aren’t you ? ” 
he asked abruptly. 

“Just twenty-four in June,” she said with won- 
der in her eyes. 

“I am coming again next June. I want you 
to learn a lesson this year. Learn how much 
money is worth and how little.” 


NOT TRUE, THEN 


327 


“I know how much it is worth,” she said 
quickly. “ I learned that all last winter when 
I was hoping to keep this home.” 

“And how little?” 

“I know what it cannot do, I think, and yet, 
I do want it dreadfully.” 

“What for?” 

“To buy our home back again and give it to 
father as long as he lives and then have it go 
to the children,” she said, controlling her voice 
with an effort. 

“And for yourself? ” 

“Why, Tm liere^' she said in surprise. 

“And content to remain here, forever?” 

“Of course,” resisted Chip, stoutly; “don’t put 
ideas into her head, she doesn’t want to go on 
a mission, like Lulu.” 

Bek laughed and considered her raisins. Her 
fingers were certainly too sticky to shake hands. 

“What else would you do with money?” he 
persisted. 

“After the farm was ours again? The twins 
are to go to Rutledge Felix and Lulu does 
want to travel.” 

“What do you want to do most?” 

“Just now finish these raisins and then make 


328 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


Mrs. Wilcox’s chamber a very bower of* beauty. 
My tastes are not elevated, you see.” 

“I see.” 

“ If it were not for my music and reading with 
Miss Southernwood I should grow rusty and an- 
tiquated,” she declared with emphasis. 

“And your Foreign Mission Band and your 
Debating Club ! And you are to have three 
pupils in music, Janet tells me.” 

“Isn’t that grand?” 

“And no more hard work on Monday morning,” 
he said. 

“ The washing ! Who told you ? Lulu was 
real brave, but it is hard for her. Yes, no more 
washing and ironing. To think 1 dare mention 
washing and ironing to you ! ” 

“I shall go away comforted because you can 
and have. It is something to remember.” 

-Bek wondered and cut a raisin in two. 

“ Give me a raisin and I’ll go.” 

She laid a bunch in his hand, he lingered one 
second and turned away without a word of parting. 

Bek finished the raisins with dimmed eyes. 

It was not true, then, this thing she had thanked 
God for. Lulu was laughing at the gate and the 
twins and Bertie were shouting good-bye. 


NOT TRUE, THEN. 


329 


He would come again next .summer and she 
would be twenty -five. He would come again 
every summer as long as Janet came. Perhaps 
until Lulu had gone on her mission and the twins 
were grown up and she was as old as Janet or 
— Miss Southernwood. 

“Ah, me!” she sighed, and then wondered 
what there was in all the world for her to sigh 
about. 

“Oh, dear,” exclaimed Lulu, after a silent mo- 
ment of watching Bek and her raisins, “there 
are plenty of things in life beside ‘roses and 
lilies and dafia-down-dillies.’ ” 

Janet and her brother rode certainly one mile 
before either spoke, at last Janet, who could 
bear it no longer, laid her hand on his. 

“Haven’t you anything to tell me, John?” 

“No,” he answered gently. 

“ Because there’s nothing to tell?” she questioned. 

“Isn’t that the best reason in the world?” 

“I thought there would be something to tell.” 

“ Perhaps there is — I suppose there always is, 
but I do not know how to tell it.” 

“I thought, at first, it was Bek who was to 
take my place and my work, but I see it is 
Lulu.” 


330 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


“How do you see that?” he asked, sharply. 

“With my eyes. You and Bek have not had 
one good, soul-stirring talk this whole month.” 

“Well!” he replied, with some irritation. 

“And she dearly loves such talks.” 

“Well,” he said again. 

“It isn’t her fault, I am sure; you have scarcely 
noticed her.” 

“She has withdrawn herself from me; she has 
given herself to every one else. She is absorbed 
in those children, saturated with them. There 
was no one to entertain me but yourself, and Miss 
Southernwood and Lulu. Bek was invisible usu- 
ally or only appearing at intervals and then she 
had something to attend to. Lulu rested me.’* 

“And do you go home rested?” 

“I am going home to work harder than ever. 
For a week something has been running through 
my mind. I almost repeated it to Bek ; I believe 
I would have done it if that Chip had not been 
around with his nonsense. It is an old favorite 
of yours : 

“ ‘ I’ll go and work tlie harder, Lord, 

And wait till by some loud, clear word. 

Thou caU’st me to Thy loved feet 
To take this thing, so dear, so sweet.’ ” 


NOT TRUE, THEN. 


331 


Janet said no more. She had not the guiding 
of these two human lives; the work of giving love 
to these two human hearts. 

They would both “ work the harder,” there was 
no doubt of that. 

And she was sure, now, at last, that it was Bek. 
But Bek ? She could not be sure of what Bek was 
thinking. 


XXI. 

A SUMMEE AND A WINTEE. 

“Praising God with sweetest looks.” 

The doves did return; in June the old mournful 
cadences floated across the fields. They startled 
the tears into Bek’s eyes; that was all. The sun- 
shine and the showers were just the same; happy 
voices, low and loud, sounded in the cool, wide 
nursery, and there was music all day long; for 
Lulu had promised Mr. Kyerson that she would 
practice four hours a day, the twins had their 
regular time for practicing, and it had been ar- 
ranged that the eldest of Mr. Kyerson’s nieces 
should practice when Lulu could attend to her. 
Such a din as there was in the house all that sum- 
mer ! It was a small world all by itself; a little 
world where Christ governed and His servants 
served Him. 

Floy dismally counted fourteen dinner plates 


A SUMMER AND A WINTER. 


333 


for the first course and when Mr. Kyerson came 
every Saturday night, as he fell into a friendly 
fashion of doing, she was sure that counted one 
more. 

Once in piling up the pile of plates, Bek had 
found her laughing, and to her question she re- 
plied : 

“ Oh, it was so appropriate I I didn’t know 
what I was singing and found it to be, 

“ ‘ When shall my labors have an end ! * ” 

This was during July and August, when Janet 
was there also. There was Mrs. Kyerson, next to 
her father, the asthmatic, talkative old lady, who 
praised everybody and everything, and begged 
them all not to work too hard ; and the invaluable 
Mary White, nurse and maid to the children, be- 
side the three children, Sylvia, Fanny and Dorcas. 
And then there was Miss Southernwood and all 
of themselves. And then, very often in busy and 
hurried times, the table of the hired men in the 
kitchen. 

Floy sighed outwardly and groaned inwardly; 
Nell lost her color and tried hard not to fret. Lulu 
was her radiant self all summer; she had found a 
part of her “ mission ” in music. Mr. Kyerson had 


334 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


promised to teach her one year, “ for love of music,” 
and then find her pupils. 

“ Among my friends is a girl who has earned for 
herself a grand piano by teaching music and is to- 
day giving lessons, and she has been taking lessons 
at five dollars a lesson.” 

“Of you?” questioned Lulu, demurely. 

“Yes,” he returned just as demurely. 

“ I’ll do all that yet,” she said decidedly, “ I will 
earn and Bek shall save. But I do hate to have 
Bek in the kitchen while I am at the piano.” 

“She doesn’t hate it.” 

“ Oh, no. She’d go out to service to help me in 
my music, I do believe.” 

“I know a lady who had a musical educa- 
tion at her mother’s expense; her mother kept a 
laundry to support her daughter; And I was in a 
crowded horse-car when she said to her mother, 
because the shabby old woman recognized her: 
‘Madam, you have the advantage of me.’” 

“I think she had,” said Lulu. 

Chip milked seven cows that summer and at- 
tended to the churning; Bek skimmed the pans, 
kept the dairy sweet, prepared butter for market 
and laid it down for winter use. She did wonder 
sometimes if people’s right arms ever dropped out. 


A SUMMER AND A WINTER. 


335 


But the dairy was a cool, sweet room, with a stone 
floor, and it was oftentimes her sanctuary; the 
music of her favorite hymn, 

“ Sayiour, more than life to me,” 

was sung in the dairy oftener than anywhere else. 

“Every day, every hour!” How she did live 
through every day, every hour of that summer. 
There were songs and prayers there as well as 
creaming milk and working butter; a bird some- 
times came to the vine-shaded window and a squir- 
rel often frisked about near its lattice. 

Her letters to Mollie and Janet were half comi- 
cal, half pathetic. 

“ I am not getting ready for any grand work,” 
she wrote once to Janet, “only doing what Pau- 
line could do a dozen times better. I need just 
til's experience; I need curbing, and humbling, 
and quieting down. I suppose we all dream. 
But I’m not dreaming now; Pm wide awake.” 

It must be confessed that she had more than 
one “ good crying spell ” at night when all the 
house was asleep; she hardly knew for what and 
she hardly knew why she felt better afterward. 
A busy little flgure, flitting hither and thither, 
with a happy face, with intent, almost intense 


336 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


eyes when in a thoughtful mood, with a laugh 
that was praise and a voice that was a stimulant ! 
A stranger would have observed nothing else and 
nothing different this summer; it was all that 
her father and the children saw. She was earn- 
ing money and she was saving money, and she 
was not too tired or unhappy; he thought this 
every day watching her; for he did watch her 
when she did not see and love her more than she 
knew. Asking her if she were tired, he was 
always reassured by her quick, bright “No, 
indeed.” 

She never asked herself whether she were tired 
or not until she gathered Bertie in her arms at 
night that they might fall asleep together. 

When Bertie repeated “ If I should die before 
I wake,” she did almost long to be in Heaven a 
little while before she awoke to another hard day; 
not to stay in Heaven ; there was so much to be 
done down here first; so much that she was bidden 
to do. Once in a while she moaned : “ 0, mother ! 
mother ! ” and more than once in a while she re- 
membered, almost with a cry on her lips and 
hands outstretched, the friend whose words and 
presence had been inspiration all through that 
doubtful, happy month. But he had always been 


A SUMMER AND A WINTER. 


337 


with Lulu, it had seemed to be Lulu that he 
wanted in walks or drives or quiet talks, Lulu 
to whom he brought books. Lulu whom he asked 
to sing and play, Lulu to whom he looked when 
he spoke. Lulu, only, for whom he asked so often. 
“Where’s Lulukin?” he never failed to say as 
soon as he missed her. And more than once he 
had assured Lulu that his sermon had been chosen 
for her. 

As if his sermons had not been as much to her 
as to Lulu ! Had not that first lecture-room talk 
taught her many things? Lulu had so much to 
be interested in ! Sometimes, it almost seemed as 
if she were growing away from her! Growing 
away from her and growing above her! Her 
little sister. Lulu ! Had not some of the summer 
boarders in Clovernook said that Miss Maurice 
was a brilliant girl, so much more noticeable than 
her elder sister who was said to be educated? 
Was it the kitchen and the moil and toil and the 
calculations that were spoiling her ? Had she 
lost the “studential” air that Mollie used to laugh 
about? She had a way of keeping in the back- 
ground to let Lulu talk; she had a way of buying 
pretty things for Lulu and brushing her old things 
anew. Slie had a Avay of being like Lulu’s mother 


338 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


instead of Lulu’s sister. And- she was almost 
twenty-five; she had almost turned the corner and 
nothing was settled, nothing had happened. 

Lulu had said laughingly one day that Bek 
would be the old maid of them all. It was silly 
and childish to remember it; but it was like some 
of the stories of elder sisters ; it might be glorious to 
give up everything to them all, but it wasn’t comfort- 
able. It would be hard, terribly hard, unbearably 
hard if — Mr. Prentiss should — marry — Lulu! The 
thought choked itself into words. But what a 
woman Lulu would be by and by, always rising 
higher and higher; and what was she herself grov- 
elling into? It rained that day and the bread was 
not as light as usual and she had not saved as large 
a sum as she often saved out of the month’s expenses 
and the month’s income, and her head ached, and 
it was a luxury to be blue once in a while. But 
Floy was blue, too; she had been blue several 
days and no one had even thought of comforting 
her. Bek had noticed it, she noticed everything, 
but the time to speak to her had been hindered by 
many things. Had one been “The Memorials of 
a Quiet Life ” that Bek had been snatching at odd 
minutes? Mr. Prentiss had broughf it to Miss 
Southernwood and Bek had lost herself in it and 


A SUMMER AND A WINTER. 


339 


found herself thinking of Mr. Prentiss oftener 
than of the Hares. Somehow the book drew her 
towards him, rather brought him near-er to her, for 
his pencilled remarks were all through it. She 
had not lost herself in any book, as she had lost 
herself in this, since her mother went away. 

She was alone in the sitting room “humoring” 
herself with it for “just half an hour by the 
clock” when Floy entered looking miserable. She 
glanced at Bek and was about to step carefully 
away when Bek glanced up the second time; 
but she did not seQ the little, miserable face, she 
was pondering the motto of one of the chapters: 
“Ah, if you knew what peace there is in an 
accepted sorrow.” 

Had she not accepted her sorrow ? Her mother’s 
death was her sorrow and — the other sorrow was 
only shadowing itself over her; she could not 
accept that yet, she could not know the peace 
of its acceptance yet. She must battle a little 
longer; defer looking it in the face; for, possibly, 
it might never be her sorrow. Lulu might think 
him too old, and learned, and grave; Lulu was 
such a child ; but would she keep it from Lulu ? 
Oh, what a tangle she was in, what a wretched 
tangle! The leaves fell apart as she held the 


340 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


book, she brought herself back to the page: the 
corners of Floy’s lips drooped and she moved 
nearer toward the door. She stood on the thresh- 
old of the kitchen and then looked back at 
Bek. But Bek saw nothing, Bek heard nothing, 
not even the soft, little, hopeless sigh. She had 
found her own thoughts in words. And, her 
heart quickened, there was the faint, rather timid 
tracing of a pencil. She heard Mr. Prentiss’ 
voice as she read, she saw a dark, red flush that 
she knew in his forehead. 

“‘What a union for two believers is a Christian 
marriage — to have one hope, one desire, one course 
of life, one service of God in common the one 
with the other! Both, like brother and sister, 
undivided in heart and flesh, or rather really two 
in one flesh, fall down together on their knees, 
they pray and fast together, they teach, they 
exhort, they bear one another mutually; they 
are together in the church of God, and in the 
supper of the Lord; they share with one another 
their grievances, their persecutions, and their joys: 
neither hides anything from the other; the sick 
are visited by them with pleasure, and the needy 
supported; psalms and hymns resound between 
them, and they mutually strive who shall best 


A SUMMER AND A WINTER. 


341 


praise their God. Christ is delighted to see and 
hear things like these. He sends His peace on 
such as these; where two are, there is He, and 
where He is evil comes not.” 

She flushed and felt ashamed. Had he thought 
of any one while he was reading it and empha- 
sizing it by those faint, bold lines? Of Marne 
Dunraven, or Lulu, or that lad}^ at home that 
he wrote to when he was at Clover nook and 
whom he called his good, right hand! Blie was 
not an insignificant little thing working so hard 
at home that there was no wider circle of helpful- 
ness than her garden fence. 

At that instant Lulu ran up the piazza, through 
the hall and into the sitting-room. 

“ Oh, Bek, guess who has written to me ? ” 

She held an open letter in her hand, but she 
put it behind her and laughed. 

“ Why, I don’t know I ” said Bek, coming reluct- 
antly back to the actual present. “ Who should ? ” 
“ Somebody that should, but never would, before I 
Do be agreeable and guess.” 

“ Mr. Prentiss ! ” guessed Floy promptly, the 
corners of her lips curving upward. 

“ You saw the envelope, and he does write a 
large hand.” 


342 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


“No, I didn’t. Somebody asked me the other 
day if he wrote to you, and I said I supposed 
so!” 

“ I don’t see why you supposed so 1 He never 
wrote to me before. He wants me to write a 
song for . him to be sung in the Sunday-school 
on Autumn Leaf Sunday. As if I could! And 
Mr. Kyerson is to write the music. He can do 
that easily enough, but I never can write the 
song! Although I may have something that I 
can fix over. Can you think of anything, Bek ? ” 

“No,” said Bek. 

She did not mean to be unsympathetic, but 
her voice was not sympathetic. 

Lulu looked hurt. 

“Why, Bek, don’t you want me to do it?” 

“Why, yes, dear!” in a changed tone. “I’ll 
look over the poems I have copied, and help you 
find something ; but I’d write something new if I 
were you.” 

“ It will be printed ! Just think ! Won’t it be 
too splendid ? I know Marne Dunraven suggested 
it. Will you look now this minute?” 

Lulu had not shown her the letter; it was a 
full sheet; did it take a full sheet to make this 
request ? 


A SUMMER AND A WINTER. 


343 


“ He has given me ideas,” Lulu tossed her the 
letter, “and they are so pretty; all I have to do 
is to find rhyme and rhythm ! That will be easy 
enough; but I’ll look and see what I have first.” 

Floy’s lips were discouraging again; would Bek 
never notice her? 

“Psalms and hymns resound between them.” 
Had she not just read that? And all Lulu 
thought of was the song she was to write. 
There was little in the letter beside the request 
and the “ideas.” He had not even sent regards 
to her; he said he was writing in haste and he 
had ended with a scrawled “ remember me to all.” 
Lulu darted away, dangling her hat by one string 
' and Bek heard her singing overhead. And he 
had needed help and had not thought of her! 
He had not thought of her simply because she 
could not help him. In all her life she had never 
made a rhyme worth anybody’s reading, and as 
for anybody’s singing! It was too funny: she 
smiled at the thought of it. But was there not 
anything in which she could help him ? He had 
never asked her to do a single thing for him — 
beside playing and singing, of course — only — 
once, had he not really asked her to write to 
him? That was in the lecture-room near Rutledge 


344 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


Felix, and she had answered so quickly without 
thinking anything. And how many things he 
had asked “ Lulukin ” to do. She had mended 
a rent in his duster last summer and even sewed 
buttons on his gloves. But when he needed help 
he never thought of her! There was nothing 
she could do but be glad that Lulu could help 
him and might help him. But she was not glad : 
she could not be glad; she was not even sure 
that she was willing. 

All this time impatient Floy stood waiting; 
at last she came to Bek, and pushing the book 
aside crept into her lap. 

“Well, little girl,” said Bek, cheerily, “she wants 
some petting, does she?” 

Floy looked grave and would not speak. 

“Is something troubling you, dear?” 

“Yes.” 

“Can’t you tell me?” 

“I don’t know how,” Floy half sobbed. 

“ Is it something you have done ? ” 

“It’s something I didn’t do.” 

“Well, it isn’t too late, is it? Jump up and 
do it now.” 

“I can’t; it is too late, and I’m afraid to tell 
you; I’m afraid you’ll be angry with me.” 


A SUMMER AND A WINTER. 


345 


“Yes; you are dreadfully afraid of me! I 
should think you would be! I wouldn’t ever 
tell if I were you; my anger will certainly be 
more than you can bear.” 

“You needn’t laugh, it is something real.” 

“Then rid yourself of it as soon as you can. 
I wouldn’t bear it another minute longer! Is 
that what you have been worried about?” 

“Yes,” with a burst of tears. 

“Have you done something very wrong?” 

“Not — wicked — but you won’t like it. I was 
coming from the post-office, and I lost somehow — 
I never can think how — a letter directed to 
you; I went back and hunted everywhere, but I 
couldn’t find it, and I’ve been out looking down 
the road every day since, and now it’s too late; 
I know you’ll never find it.” 

“ Where was it from ? ” 

“I don’t know; I didn’t look at the postmark, 
but it looked like — this.” She stooped over and 
picked up Mr. Prentiss’ envelope from the carpet. 

“The envelope was large like this, and the 
* Miss’ looked just like this ! And the County was 
down in one corner like this.” 

Bek did not speak ; she did not know that her 
heart could beat like that. 


346 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


“And I don't know what to do? Are you 
angry with me ? ” 

“No, dear.” 

“ But don’t you want it ? ” 

“Yes, I want it.” 

Oh, how she did want it ! 

“I didn’t mean to be careless; I never lost a 
letter before. And I’ve prayed that I might find 
it, and I’ve prayed while I looked, but there 
doesn’t seem to be any answer.” 

Would there be an answer if she prayed? 
wondered Bek. Was there anything else to do? 

“What will you do about it?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Don’t you know what to do?” 

“No.” 

“I thought you always knew.” 

“ This is one of the times when I don’t 
know.” 

“ Perhaps Miss Southernwood will know, or 
Miss Janet,” suggested Floy, hopefully. 

“ Have you told any one ? ” 

“Only Nell.” 

“Don’t tell any one, it isn’t worth while.” 

“I wanted to write to Mr. Prentiss and ask 
him to write it over again, but Nell wouldn’t 


A SUMMER AND A WINTER. 


347 


let me; she said if he liadnH written it, it would 
be funny, and she said you wouldn’t like it.” 

“No; I shouldn’t like it.” 

“Are you dreadfully sorry ?” in a pitiful voice. 

How little Floy knew what “ dreadfully sorry ” 
meant ! 

“Yes. I am sorry, but I do not blame you, 
dear. There’s Dorcas calling. Eun away and 
don’t mind! It will all come out right.” 

Floy gave her a quick, glad kiss, and ran away 
to see what Dorcas wanted. 

No; there was nothing to be done. And why 
should the letter be from him ? Nevertheless 
she scarcely slept that night and did not sing 
about the house the next day. 

The letter ivas from Mr. Prentiss and ran thus: 

“My dear Friend: — Janet writes me that you 
are working too hard and fears you will break 
down under your care. This knowledge hurries 
me into telling you a secret. 1 have, in trust, 
a sum of money for you; it was to be given to 
you on your birthday — your twenty-fifth birth- 
day — but if in my judgment I deemed best to 
anticipate the time, I was left at liberty to do 
so. Therefore, if you choose, I can put you in 


348 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


possession of one thousand dollars and then keep 
the rest of the secret until your birthday. Don’t 
ask any questions, please. My will would be to 
give you the one thousand dollars to-day. Your 
life is of more worth to me than you can ever 
imagine. If you prefer strongly to wait until your 
birthday, I shall not seriously object. 

“Yours ever, 

“John Prentiss.” 

But the letter was safe in the pocket of Floy’s 
blue muslin; the day she had lost the letter had 
been one of the rarest of Indian summer days, 
that night it had become colder, and Floy inno- 
cently hung the dress away, saying to Nell that 
she did not believe she would wear it until next 
summer; and as it was almost too short now, 
perhaps Bek would give it away, and she might 
never wear it again. 

“Then I won’t wear mine either,” said Nell. 

This very morning Bek had folded the two 
blue muslin dresses and laid them away in a 
long chest; she had taken a soiled handkerchief 
from the pocket of one of the dresses, and then 
it had not occurred to her to put her hand into 
the pocket of the other. 


A SUMMER AND A WINTER. 


349 


She had been learning the lesson he had set 
her to learn; she wondered greatly why he should 
have chosen a lesson about money; money’s worth 
and money’s worthlessness ! Without money and 
without price the best things were to be had ; but, 
oh, there were so many other things, that money 
could do, that money could buy. It could buy 
Pauline back. It could give her time to read 
and study and practice; it could give them their 
home back again ; it could send the twins to Rut- 
ledge Felix; it could give Chip a business educa- 
tion; it could educate Bertie; it could give Lulu 
years of musical advantages. But her first corner 
would come, notwithstanding money’s worth or 
worthlessness I And money could not give the best 
things. It could not give her what she wanted 
most; it could not even find her letter. The Bar- 
oness Burdett-Coutts could not find that letter any 
more readily than she could! And if she were 
worth Queen Victoria’s income, Mr. Prentiss would 
not have asked her to writ6 a poem 1 The letter 
was not found, neither was it forgotten; suppose 
some one had told her that she had touched the 
outside of it I Perhaps we touch the outside of 
many of our blessings 1 

The old routine of breakfast, dinner and supper 


350 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


all through the fall, as all through the summer. 
This was one of the summers that nothing hap- 
pen id. Lulu’s music, however, was happening 
to her. The yellow head and the black head spent 
hours, at one time, over the piano. An enthusi- 
astic teacher had found an enthusiastic pupil. 
Lulu’s memory of that summer was all music. 
They sang the Autumn Leaf song together and 
each delighted in the work of the other. 

“You could easily do mine,” said Mr. Ryerson, 
“but I can never do yours.” 

“I didn’t do mine,” Lulu averred, “Mr. Pren- 
tiss did it.” 

November came, as November will, whether 
anything happens or not. And nothing kept on 
happening still. 

The asthmatic old lady begged to remain 
through the winter, affirming that she had not 
breathed with so much comfort since she had 
left California. 

“When the children grow up and can do fur 
themselves I am going back there again to 
breathe.” 

The invaluable Mary White was dismissed, and 
grandma became the children’s nurse; the school- 
room was made ready for three more pupils. 


A SUMMER AND A WINTER. 


351 


and Miss Southernwood had three more pupils to 
teach for love of teaching and for love of 
them. 

Winter came again; a winter of hard work and 
doing without. Mr. Prentiss would not write to 
Bek to ask the reason of her silence; he sup- 
posed that she preferred to wait; perhaps she 
had other uses for the money than for spending 
it at home. Perhaps she did not reply because 
of that one sentence that wrote itself; it would 
escape him, he could not keep it back. Silence 
was not the best answer to give, but she had 
chosen to give it. Despite the presence of the 
children, despite Lulu’s evident happiness, de- 
spite her increasing love for her father and appre- 
ciation of his many fine and lovable qualities, the 
winter was rather a dreary one to Bek. How 
she studied “Common Sense” that her dinners 
and breakfasts and suppers might be economical I 
How she pored over pattern-books that she might 
turn and twist and altogether renovate dresses 
for the twins! How she gave up, with no out- 
ward sign of reluctance, her own becoming crim- 
son velvet turban to Lulu and told her how 
lovely she was in it! And how she decided to 
do without the money she had earned by her 


352 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


music scholars that the dining-room might have 
a new carpet. Old Aunt Comfort would have 
said that she did the thing she wanted to do 
most: make home a blessing to the children. 
Taine’s “English Literature” and the books that 
Miss Southernwood read were in no way powerful 
rivals to “ Common Sense.” The butcher’s book and 
the grocery book were looked at every week, and 
each page scanned, the amount at the bottom of 
each page carefully considered, and the amount 
“brought forward” kept painfully in mind. The 
bills would be paid, of course; but paying bills 
was not saving towards the mortgage. The twin’s 
winter suit. Chip’s handsome overcoat. Lulu’s be- 
coming gray cloak, even baby Bertie’s boots and 
pretty stockings were each pondered duly before 
purchased. Her own winter suit was re-made and 
re-trimmed, the old brown hat pressed into new 
fashion, kid gloves dispensed with and cheap 
shoes chosen. It was so wearing to be contin- 
ually planning how to save money; the cares of 
this life came near choking the good seed that 
winter. She gave up drinking milk because the 
little Kyersons must have milk; she even won- 
dered how it would do for her to take her tea 
and coffee without sugar and more than a few 


A SUMMER AND A WINTER. 


353 


times permitted the cake basket to pass by be- 
cause seven slices a week would make 

She was alone before the dying embers of the 
school-room fire one evening in March when this 
original calculation struck her. Somehow she had 
dragged through the day, and she was resting be- 
fore the fire simply because she was too weary 
to cross the hall to her own little bedroom where 
Bertie lay fast asleep. 

Lulu pushed the door open and looked in. 

“ Bek ! ” she said shyly. 

It was not like Lulu to be shy. 

Bek said “ Well ” without raising her head. She 
was sitting on the rug with her head pillowed 
upon both arms in her mother’s rocker. 

There was a shadow over Lulu’s face, her eyes 
were dropped; the shadow might be in her eyes. 
But it was not in her eyes; Bek was startled at 
the gladness in them as she raised her own 
listlessly. 

“ What has happened, child ? ” 

“Nothing, something — everything,” replied Lulu, 
incoherently. 

“You look so,” smiled Bek. 

Lulu, the “child,” the child no longer, stood 
on the rug looking down into the dusky red 


354 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


embers. All that she gave Bek was a nervous 
figure in navy blue and the back of Jier braided 
head. 

“I’ve been trying to tell you,” she burst out, 
“but I never could begin. I think mother will 
b6 glad, he is so good and so splendid, and I’ve 
been learning how to help him — are you glad, 
Bek?” 

“Glad about what? Your music?” 

Bek had not been listening. She was wonder- 
ing if Lulu would need a new dress this spring ; 
that navy blue was very becoming and so little 
worn. She sighed; she did not like to think 
about dress. She did not like to think about many 
things that she had to think about. 

“ Why, didn’t you understand ? Must I make 
it plainer, you unromantic sister ? ” 

“Yes, please, I was thinking of something 
else.” 

“You always are nowadays. Mr. Eyerson is 
coming to-morrow night.” 

“He always does come twice a month,” said 
Bek. 

“But he was here last week,” returned Lulu, 
consciously. 

“So he was, I forgot.” 


A SUMMER AND A WINTER. 


355 


“ He is coming to talk to you and father,” said 
Lulu stooping to poke one of the embers farther 
back. 

“Especially for that I Oh, Lulu! You don’t 
mean — ” 

“ Yes, I do,” laughed Lulu with a tremor in the 
laugh. 

Lulu — her little sister! The sister younger than 
herself! How old she herself was growing! 

With a laugh and a sob Lulu threw herself 
down on the rug beside her, and laid her head 
on the cushion of their . mother’s chair. They' 
both felt as though their heads were in their 
mother’s lap. It was a good place for Lulu to 
tell her glad news in ; a good place for the elder 
sister to listen to such glad news. 

“Do you like it ?” questioned Lulu, hiding her 
face. 

“ I like him,” said Bek, “ and I like you, but 
I shall have to think before I know if I like it 
0, Lulu, you are only a little girl yet.” 

“Nearly twenty,” said Lulu, convincingly. 

“Yes, you are; you are twenty the week that 
I am twenty-five. Lulu, it makes me feel 
old.” 

“ Well, you are rather old,” Lulu answered in 


356 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


a matter-of-fact tone. “I think twenty-five is 
quite old.” 

“I used to think so — when I was twenty. I 
believe I think so to-night.” 

“ I’m so sorry — I wanted to teach and help about 
the mortgage; it seems like leaving you behind 
— you and the others, but he says — you know 
his salary has been raised, it is two thou- 
sand now, and I love the children, and shan’t 
mind them one bit, and grandma is so much 
better, and he doesn’t want to wait. There 
doesn’t seem anything to wait for particularly, 
does there ? ” 

“Well, no, — or to get married for particularly 
either. He comes twice a month and grandma 
says she must stay here on account of her asth- 
ma,” said Bek wilfully. 

“Bek! That doesn’t sound like you.” 

“Do I want to lose my little sister?” 

“You will have the twins,” said Lulu, in an 
injured tone. 

“ How long ? They will be coming by and by 
and telling me they are twenty. Oh, what do 
girls get to be twenty for ? ” 

“Bek, you think about nothing but that hor- 
rid mortgage.” 


A SUMMER AND A WINTER. 


357 


“I do think of it too much,” confessed Bek. 

“That’s wicked,” said Lulu, wisely. “Mr. Kyer- 
Bon says the cares of this world are as much of 
a snare as the riches of this world.” 

“ 1 understand that ! I don’t deserve the riches. 
I’m letting the cares come between me-^-and other 
things.” 

“Will you tell father — prepare him?” Lulu 
coaxed. 

“He would like it better coming from you.” 

“ But I wouldn’t like it better. I should choke. 
Suppose I let him guess.” 

“You didn’t let me guess.” 

“ I have tried to make you. But you wouldn’t 
understand.” 

“ I understand now,” said Bek, lifting her head 
to kiss her little sister. “ That is for mother and 
this is for me.” 

The kiss was not the only thing for herself; 
after Lulu went away she covered her face and 
— she was not brave to-night, little Bek with 
her many burdens; there were the mortgage and 
the children and the housekeeping and Lulu 
loving somebody better than her eldest sister 
and the missing somebody far away and the 
being so tired ! And her cares were all creep- 


358 


BEK’S FIRST CORNER. 


ing into her prayers and staying there instead 
of being cast upon One that careth. 

This was in March, in April came the heavy 
cold and the attack of pneumonia and other 
things. In May, one day. Miss Southernwood 
put a fly * blister on her chest, and six hours 
afterward took it off and “dressed” it. That 
was the last thing Bek knew for six delirious 
weeks. All through those weeks she was away 
from home, travelling by land and sea, every 
adventure was full of terror; there was no one 
near to help or save, sometimes she shrieked in 
hysterics, sometimes sobbed, often prayed, not 
once did she recognize the faces or voices around 
her. They told her afterward that her eyes 
grew peaceful while Mr. Dunraven prayed, and 
that a gleam of pleasure would come when some 
one said “Janet.” 

“She must die,” the physicians said. 

“I’ll feed her till the last,” Janet declared reso- 
lutely and kept the beef-tea at her lips while Mr. 
Maurice and Miss Southernwood begged her to 
take it away. 

“She is my patient,” said Janet quietly and 
they desisted. 

One day her eyes opened quietly and she looked 


A SUMMER AND A WINTER. 


359 


around and saw that she was at home. Three 
months from the day that she was taken ill she 
walked across her chamber without assistance. 

“I’ve been away a long time,” she said. “Tell 
me about the things that have happened ! ” 

Floy drew her head down and whispered, 
“Mr. Prentiss did write that letter, but he says 
he’ll tell you all about it.” 


XXII. 

THINGS THAT HAPPENED. 

“Faith can firmly trust Him in the darkest hour, 

For the key she holdeth to His love and power.” 

“Let Bertie begin first,” said Lulu, “and we’ll 
all take our turns.” 

“It will be a long story,” laughed Nell, “for 
everything has happened. ” 

“All the things that never happened before,” 
said Lulu. 

“ And they all happened without me,” Bek 
said musingly. Floy’s whisper had flooded her 
eyes with light. 

“Yes,” declared Lulu, “you might as well have 
an easy time after this; the world kept spinning 
around and all things in it kept moving or kept 
stationary without a word of advice from you. 
Everybody’s cares and everybody’s riches have 
choked them just the same, and you, you dear 
old, busy, care-taking Bek, have neither lielped 


THINGS THAT HAPPENED. 


261 


nor hindered. So, wo'nJt you have an easy time 
after this?” 

“Yes,” smiled Bek. 

The Boston rocker with its gay chintz cushions 
was Bek’s resting-place this July morning; she 
was wrapped in a shawl of white wool, its fleecy 
whiteness softened the thin face and brought 
out the tints of cheeks and lips; her hair fell 
over her shoulders in two long braids and the 
moist hair over her forehead curled more than 
ever in baby rings: the luminous gray eyes, the 
smiling lips, the weak, happy voice all told the 
same story, — gratitude and gladness. She had 
come back to them from the grave. 

“Bertie,” she said, drawing the child’s head 
into her lap, “what did you do while Bek was 
sick?” 

“ I stayed down-stairs,” he said mournfully. 

“I think you did!'' said Nell. “You were 
always running away upstairs.” 

“I wanted to see Bek,” he said pleadingly. 
“She would not come down-stairs.” 

“Well, twinies, what did you do?” 

“Enough,” answered Floy; “but no matter 
what we did, Bek : we didn’t do the happenings ! ” 

The air stirred the muslin curtains — for Bek 


362 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


was in the school-room, ferns and daisies filled 
the stone jar in the open fireplace. “ Bob White ” 
called out in the cradled wheat fields, and the 
scent of clover was wafted from some newly- 
mown hay field. The twins were hovering around 
the Boston rocker, Bertie was putting together 
his Sliced Birds on the carpet. Lulu was sway- 
ing to and fro in the spring rocker, the dancing 
light in her eyes subdued, and Janet was busily 
mending a long rent in Sylvia’s blue muslin. 

“ Who did the happenings ? ” queried Bek. 

“I wonder who does,” asked Floy. 

“I think Mary Wilcox had something to do 
with some of them,” Janet decided, looking with 
satisfaction upon her neat handiwork. 

“I think she did!'^ laughed Lulu, flushing, 
“ but we had to comfort poor old grandma’s 
sore heart.” 

“Don’t speak in enigmas,” pleaded Bek. “Janet, 
you are the quietest, please begin at the beginning 
and tell me all the way through.” 

“And children don’t you dare interrupt,” said 
Janet, lifting a warning forefinger. 

“No,” promised the twins. Lulu would not 
promise. 

“Well, Bek, while you were so sick Mary 


THINGS THAT HAPPENED. 


363 


Wilcox came to see her mother. It seems that 
she has a better heart than she used to have, 
than the one she was born with, and she came 
to take her mother and the youngest little orphan 
back to California. Grandma would not be sep- 
arated from them, and that is the reason Mary 
would not take her into her home before. But 
she lost her baby this spring, and then she be- 
gan to long for her mother. Grandma was more 
than glad to go, for she loves Mary, but she would 
not separate the children; she wanted Mary to 
take them all. But Mary, as usual, was as firm 
as a rock. Then ‘Rye,’ as Lulu prettily calls 
him, not liking ‘Mark,’ and eschewing ‘Mr. 
Ryerson,’ came to the rescue with a bold propo- 
sition that had the effect of throwing a bomb 
into this quiet household. Grandma had cried 
and said she would never see him married if she 
went, and engagements were often broken, and 
what would become of the dear children ! She 
would not go unless Mark had a wife to look 
after him, and to take care of the children — ” 

“Why, Lulu!” exclaimed Bek, flushing with 
bewilderment. 

“Rye would insist,” said Lulu, demurely; “he 
said it was the last thing he could do to make his 


364 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


mother happy. I felt dreadfully about it ! I 
wanted you to be with us and know about it.” 
Lulu’s lip quivered and the slow tears rolled down 
her cheeks. 

“It was so happy and solemn; Mr. Dunraven 
had been praying with you, and he came down- 
stairs and married us; Janet would not leave you, 
but all the others huddled around; father cried like 
a baby and so did grandma; everything grew dark 
before my eyes, and if Eye hadn’t caught me I 
should have fallen. It was over in a few minutes, 
and kisses and tears and congratulations were in 
order. Grandma and Mary started for California 
in two hours. Eye drove them to the depot and I 
was left — rather the children were left — with me. 
Mary pitied me with all her heart, she said, and 
said her brother stood in his own light and in mine 
by keeping them. But we don’t think so ! Janet 
and Miss Southernwood have partly adopted them 
and Aunt Lulu doesn’t have much to do beside 
pet them. I’m nofi^ going away until you are 
about the house, Bek.” 

“And who is housekeeper, pray?” asked Bek. 
She was too weak to be very much astonished at 
anything. Things did happen very queerly in this 
old, new world that she had come back to! 


THINGS THAT HAPPENED. 


365 


“Pauline, of course,” returned Lulu, triumph- 
antly. “ She insisted upon coming back the first 
week you were delirious, and we were all glad 
enough to have her.” 

“ That’s delightful,” sighed Bek with a happy 
sigh. 

“ I’ve wanted to tell you every day, but I didn’t 
dare,” said Lulu, in a relieved voice. “You are 
not so very sorry.” 

“No, dear. I’m very glad.” 

Lulu bent forward and kissed Bek’s fingers. 
Janet had forbidden too much affectionate 
demonstration. 

“ And my birthday happened,” said Bek. “ Did 
anybody know it?” 

“John and I spoke of it,” said Janet quietly. 

“Was he here ? ” asked Bek, tears that she could 
not control starting to her eyes. 

Oh, if she might have known through the long 
agony that he was within sound of her voice. 

“And he’s here now!” cried Nell. “And as 
soon as you are not nervous he’s coming to see you.” 

“I won’t be nervous to-morrow,” said Bek. 

“ Then he shall come to-morrow,” promised Janet, 
“ and your father shall take you down to the ham- 
mock again.” 


366 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


“ How much I’ve learned about father,” said Bek, 
“ when he takes me into his arms, I feel so snug 
and safe. He seems so strong and sure! I feel 
like a baby in a cradle. I can understand now 
how mother loved to have him always with her 1 
And he says I am like mother, and it seems like 
taking care of her. I wish she knew — I wish she 
could hear him pray and sing.” 

“ She does know, if it will add to her happiness,” 
said Janet; “if the angels rejoice over one that re- 
pents, why should not the saints who love them 
best ? ” 

“I’ll tell him that,” said Bek. 

“ I have told him,” Janet said, “ and it was worth 
while to see his face.” 

After a little while Bek said solemnly, “ I’ve been 
thinking about Lazarus. He really came back 
from the dead. How different life must have 
seemed to him.” 

“ Does it to you ? ” asked Janet. 

“Yes.” 

^^How different?” questioned Lulu. 

“Isn’t there something about being risen with 
Christ ? As if we had come out of the grave with 
Him! I want to look at life as He does — as far as 
I can. I do not think the ‘ cares ’ will choke me, 


THINGS THAT HAPPENED. 


367 


Lulu; I have learned that things happen without 
me. 

“ Perhaps now you could even bear to be rich,” 
suggested Janet, with a mystery in her voice. 

“No; I don’t want to be rich. Janet, I can 
trust Him with the mortgage now.” 

“ I hope you can,” exclaimed Janet, with energy. 

“Janet, if I want to, may I see your brother to- 
day ? ” she asked shyly. “ He is to me spiritually 
what father is physically. My spirit feels so sure 
and safe with him.” 

Janet laughed. “ He said he would not see you 
until you asked for him. And he can talk delicious 
nonsense — there’s so much sense in it.” 


XXIII. 


IN THE HAMMOCK. 

“ God giveth. Not His best at first; 

He who set forth the feast of old 
Began with wine that was the worst; 

After the crimson comes the gold.”— Mbs. Whitney. 

August! Was it August so soon? And where 
had July gone? It had gone in prayers and mus- 
ings, hope and happiness, in restful days and rest- 
ful nights, with Janet ever at her side to render 
lovingly the slightest service, with Janet’s brother 
to give himself without slightest reservation. What 
a happy world this was to come back to! How 
restful and joyful even the kingdom on the earth 
might be! To Bek! But to some other? Ger- 
trude Prentiss was some one else in the kingdom 
on the earth. She found Bek in the hammock one 
August morning. The hammock was swung in one 
corner of the shaded front piazza; the low hanging 
branches of the evergreen screened her from view 
at one side and honeysuckle climbed in green pro- 


IN THE HAMMOCK, 


869 


fusion at the end. Floy told her that she was as 
snug as a pea in a pod, Bertie said she was a bird 
in a tree, Nell declared that she was a lovely rose 
nestled among green leaves; this morning she was 
only a little bundle of white with a shining head. 
Gertrude knew where to find her; she dropped 
herself, literally dropped,, as though she were weary 
of being suspended, into a camp-chair near Bek’s 
head and regarded her awhile before she spoke. 

“Well,” smiled Bek, the survey being ended. 

“I almost wish I was you; I never saw any 
one before that I came so near envying.” 

“There’s Lulu,” said Bek, “no one could be 
happier than she. She’s filled full of happiness.” 

“ So are you.” 

“Am I? Am I satisfied?" 

“You look so.” 

“So I am this instant. But Janet is going 
away, and Lulu and the children and my new, 
dear brother. Do you think of my winter with- 
out them ? ” 

“Has her brother gone? Mr. Prentiss?” 

“Not quite yet. A college friend has supplied 
his pulpit at home all this long time. He says 
this vacation is to last him ten years.” 

Gertrude swung the hammock to and fro. 


370 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


“I’m so sorry for you, dear — about the baby,” 
said Bek, touching her hand. 

“You need not be. Your sympathy is wasted. 
I can’t tell any one else so. I am glad he is gone.” 

“Oh, Gertrude!” cried Bek, inexpressibly shocked. 

The faded, wan face, the expressionless voice 
that gathered energy now and then I How Bek’s 
heart ached for the poor wife who had been ruddy 
Gertrude Kaymond with so much to look forward 
to, so much to live for. 

“I am glad. I have thanked the Lord who 
once took little children into His arms.” 

“ They said he was so cunning. Three months 
old, too.” 

“ He was soft and warm and sweet. He would 
have said ‘mamma’ by and by. But he will 
never grow up to — there is such a thing as an 
inherited taste. Haven’t you heard of it.” 

“Yes,” said Bek shivering, in a startled tone. 

“ His little clothes are folded away; I kiss them 
but I shed no tears.” 

“ Poor mother I ” said Bek, stroking her cheek. 

“ There comes Mr. Prentiss. 1 hope he will call 
again to see Julius,” Gertrude exclaimed as his step 
touched the piazza. Rising hastily she passed 
through the hall in search of Miss Southernwood. 


IN THE HAMMOCK. 


371 


Mr. Prentiss came to the hammock and looked down 
into the eyes that were radiant through tears. 

She smiled and lifted her hand. What a strong- 
hold he was after thinking of Gertrude’s husband ! 

“So Janet cannot beguile you away, to grow 
strong,” he said taking the frail hand into his own. 

“No one can beguile nie away from this green 
corner. It is the sea-shore ; — I close my eyes and 
the wind in the locusts, the maples and the 
evergreen is like the sound of the sea, I open 
them and look out through the opening between 
the evergreen and the honeysuckle at the tree- 
tops far away and I see the mountains.” 

“ Perhaps you want the bustle and din of the 
city?” 

“Not yet.” 

“When?” 

“When I am stronger. Lulu has planned for 
me to visit her this winter, and I shall see Janet, 
and Eye is a dear, big brother.” 

He drew the camp-chair a little nearer the ham- 
mock, seated himself and played with the colored 
ropes. “ And I thought last summer that he wanted, 
and you wanted, something else — something nearer 
and dearer than big brotherhood,” 

“ Did you ? Why how could you ? ” she asked. 


372 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


“I did, and so it seems I could,” he answered 
easily. 

“It was very queer. I never thought of such 
a thing. I couldn’t,” she added decisively. 

“ Why couldn’t you ? ” he asked smiling at her 
quick-coming color. 

“ Because I didn’t want to. Isn’t that a suffi- 
cient reason ? ” she said untangling the fringe of 
her shawl. 

“ Sufficient, certainly. But Lulukin thought so.” 

“ Did she ? ” laughed Bek. “ Perhaps she was 
afraid of it.” 

“You were too busy, weren’t you?” 

“ Too busied with other things. I think I have 
learned the lesson about money that you wanted 
me to.” 

“ I am sure you have.” 

“Still I do feel troubled a little about the great, 
expense of my illness. There’s one bill of a 
hundred dollars for beef for beef tea, and another 
hundred for other things — Janet would have all 
she wanted and father was so willing to obey her, 
and the doctor’s bill — I would part with the 
piano, — it’s all I have to sell, but I can’t take it 
from the twins, and it will be so long before I 
can earn money.” 


IN THE HAMMOCK. 


373 


“I hope you never will,” he returned with 
energy. 

“Isn’t that cruel?” 

“You do not need to. Don’t you know you 
do not need to ? ” 

“Father comforts me about it and says I’m 
worth a fortune, but I do not feel it.” 

“You must feel it,” he said imperatively, watch- 
ing the hecks of sunshine upon her hair and the 
white shawl. What a fragile little thing she was ! 

“ Can I feel a thing that I do not know ? ” 

“ You must not be obstinate, you must take our 
word for it. I am the bearer of good tidings to- 
day. I have come to tell you a secret.” 

The face that he was watching paled and then 
flushed; he imprisoned the hands that were trem- 
bling and held them gently and firmly in his, 
speaking lightly. Janet had declared that he was 
as good a nurse as she was herself. Bek was 
learning that the assertion was true. 

“ I wrote you a secret once, didn’t I ? When 
you were a little girl seventeen years old. Now 
I have another of the same kind. Your old aunt 
was afraid to trust you with more than sufficient 
for your education and a few other things, and 
commissioned me to take care of a certain sum 


374 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER, 


for you until you were grown wise and good to 
appreciate its value and to use it well. I was to 
give it into your hands when you were twenty- 
live; but on that day you were not wise enough 
to appreciate it and use it well, and I have kept 
the secret until you were wise enough. And I 
think you are wise enough to-day.” 

Bewilderment and delight battled with each 
other in her eyes. 

“ Is it much ? ” she asked as soon as surprise 
permitted her to speak. 

“Enough to pay all your bills.” 

“ Oh, I’m so glad ! So more than glad ! I’ll 
tell father as soon as he comes in. May I have 
it immediately ? ” she asked nervously, with bright 
spots burning in each cheek. 

“As soon as I can give it to you.” 

“Oh, how good Aunt Kebekah was! In what 
a time of need it has come.” 

“There will be something over.” 

“ Another hundred ? ” she questioned. “ I want 
to buy things for Lulu’s housekeeping. It may 
seem extravagant, but I would like a whole 
thousand for Lulu. To furnish her house and 
to furnish her wardrobe. She isn’t dressed like 
a bride.” 


IN THE HAMMOCK. 


375 


“ There will be a whole thousand for that.” 

Her breath seemed taken away. 

“ I might as well wish for enough for the 
mortgage now,” she cried with a sound like a 
sob. 

“There is enough for the mortgage,” he said 
gravely. 

“Oh, dear!” She caught her breath and her 
lips grew white. 

“ Bek, darling, don’t do so I ” 

But she burst into hysterical tears and sobbed 
until he spoke sternly. 

“You do not deserve to know the rest. I 
thought I could trust you.” 

“Do trust me. Til be very good. Is there 
more ? ” 

“ Enough to send the twins to Rutledge Felix, and 
then there will be something over for yourself.” 

“ There’s Chip to send to a business college, 
I wonder if I can do that.” 

“I think you can.” 

“ Is that oE ? ” 

“Oh, you craving spirit! Isn’t that enough?” 

“But I want to know in dollars and cents,” 
she urged. 

“You practical little business woman!” 


376 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


“Did mother know?” she asked, the truth 
flashing upon her that this was what her mother 
meant by being “provided for.” 

“Yes, I told her. She knew it was a sacred 
trust.” 

A sacred trust ! The very words. How her 
heart sickened in the midst of her bewildering 
happiness. This money meant so much to them 
all, but, oh, for herself, how she longed for 
something beside and better I 

“You haven’t said how much,” she said faintly. 

“Ten thousand dollars at compound interest 
since your seventeenth birthday ! ” 

She repeated his words in slow amazement. 

“Mother would like me to do these things.” 

“I am sure she would; but she asked me to 
beg you to keep something for yourself.” 

“ Oh, there’s enough for me,” she said content- 
edly. “Just bend your head and thank God for 
me and then go and tell father.” 

“I will, in one moment. Will you give me 
something to thank Him for, too ? ” 

“ I wish I could^" she said so low that he bent 
nearer to catch the words. 

“0, Bek! Bek!” the twins cried together dan- 
cing from the hall out to the hammock. 


IN THE HAMMOCK. 


377 


“Oh, Bek, you can’t think!” exclaimed Nell. 

“Oh, Bek, you never covM, guess,” exclaimed 
Floy. 

The dark flush that Bek knew had mounted 
to Mr. Prentiss’ forehead; he tipped b^ck in the 
camp-chair and looked at the twins. 

Over Floy’s arm was a mass of blue something, 
in her eagerness Nell was catching at the mass 
of blue. 

“ Do try to guess I ” coaxed Floy. 

“ What shall I guess about ? ” asked Bek. 

“ Guess about something that is lost,” said Nell. 

“ Your penknife.” 

“ Oh, it’s worth more than that.” 

“ Bertie’s ‘ Chatterbox.’ ” 

“No,” they both cried. 

“ Lulu’s shoe-buttoner.” 

“Now do be sensible!” rebuked Floy. 

“ No, go on,” laughed Mr. Prentiss, “ we shall 
have a list of every thing that is lost in the house- 
hold.” 

“ Even hearts ? ” queried Nell, saucily. 

“Father’s new rake,” guessed Bek. 

“ In the pocket of my muslin dress ! ” rejoined 
Floy. 

“ And it has been there ever since it was lost I 


378 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


Or rather ever since it wasn't lost,” Nell corrected. 
“Now do guess like a sensible girl.” 

“Whose is it?” Bek questioned. 

“Your name is on it,” said Floy, delightedly, 
“and wasnt I glad to find it? You know you 
said we might give our blue muslins to that girl in 
Lulu’s class that can’t come to Sunday-school — ” 

“ Because she hasn’t a blue muslin,” interrupted 
Nell. 

“And you had two,” said Mr. Prenttss. 

“But it was in my pocket,” said Floy; 
can’t you guess! I had it on the day I lost — 
Why, how can you help guessing.” • 

“Have I missed it?” questioned Bek. 

“You never had it; but you felt pretty blue 
about it,” laughed Floy, “and I did, too, — more 
than blue. Now, you must know I ” 

“It isn’t — ” Bek half arose, the crimson in 
her cheeks. 

“No; it isn’t!” said Floy, tantalizingly. “Guess 
again ! ” 

Floy was sure that Mr. Prentiss knew by the 
fun in his eyes; he seemed really enjoying Bek’s 
confusion. 

“Don’t tease her,” he laughed. 

Bek threw herself back again as Floy dropped 


IN THE HAMMOCK. 


379 


the letter in her lap, and ran away, Nell followed 
catching the trailing blue muslin. With the crim- 
son in her cheeks, and eyes too full of something 
to be lifted, Bek picked at the envelope. How 
well she remembered that rainy afternoon ! Had 
she ever been so depressed in all her life ! And 
that long quotation in “ Memorials of a Quiet Life 
and the anxiety and the trembling hope about 
the letter now safe in her fingers. That was in 
October and to-day was August ! But the letter 
was taken from her fingers and the fingers them- 
selves taken into custody. The dark head was 
close to her own again; the rings of hair were 
touching his lips. 

“May I thank Him because you have given 
yourself to me ? ” 

The surprise was too great and too sudden — 
and yet was it a surprise ? Perhaps it was the 
joy that was too great and too sudden; her lips 
moved, but she did not speak ; but he understood, and 
it was not the first hour in which he understood. 
He bent his head and kissed her lips — the lips, 
that for very joy, could not frame one syllable, 
and then, in a voice that was as tremulous as the 
beating of her heart, he gave thanks for the sure 
happiness He had given to them both. 


380 


BEK'S FIRST CORNER. 


And after that what happened? Why, things 
just began to happen. And they kept happening 
until you see them again, five years afterward, 
on this same piazza, with the same hammock 
swinging in Bek’s shaded corner. 

The children’s father came to the doorway with 
a hat full of harvest apples, tossing one to each 
as they bent forward or stayed their word or 
their talk to catch it. Bek’s mother’s husband; 
more and more he was that to Bek and every 
year he grew worthier of being her husband. 
“My wife” was still the tenderest memory of 
his life. Bek had bought the farm for the children, 
but it was to be his as long as he lived. 

Miss Southernwood had grown five years older 
and five years lovelier; she dated her letters to 
Bek: “Written from Clovernook.” Bek, more than 
twice or thrice had dated her letters, written in 
her husband’s study: “Written from Kome.” 

Janet had come, also — she came, every summer 
with the Kyersons to spend her vacation at the 
farm ; she looked her five years older, every year 
left its imprint on her heart and in her face. 

Lulu had long known the story of how Janet 
Prentiss was her husband’s first love; her sweet, 
arch eyes had lifted themselves to his when he 


IN THE HAMMOCK. 


381 


had finished the story and all she said was: “I’m 
sorry that Janet has lost so much.” “Eye,” as 
they had all learned to say, was still as handsome 
as Lulu’s ideal of a Saxon king; he still sat all 
day long on his high stool, but his salary had 
been increased; his wife, as well as himself, gave 
music lessons for love of it, but Lulu contended 
that they were both saving for the little farm in 
Clovernook that was to be their refuge in old age. 

The children, Sylvia, Dorcas and Fanny, seemed 
to be generally adopted by the whole family; 
Janet claimed them as especially her own. 

The twins were grown up, of course. Floy 
had developed a talent for housekeeping and 
Nell was teaching the Clovernook school. Chip’s 
business education had earned him the right to be- 
come a man of business; he had a good clerkship 
in Cumberland, and, as the time of the family 
gathering chanced to come within the limit of 
his ten days’ vacation, he was at home in time 
to tease the two babies to his heart’s content. 
The two babies were Lulu’s charming four-year- 
old Jennie and Bek’s sturdy two-year-old Mark; 
small uncle Bertie was their chief companion. 

John Prentiss was John Prentiss stilly not 
changed, but developed. Bek said loviug her 


382 


BEK^S FIRST CORNER. 


husband was every day helping her to love 
Christ. 

Miss Southernwood was as settled at the farm 
as though she had at first taken root there ; every- 
body knew that she intended to educate Bertie 
and until the time for him to prepare for college, 
her comfortable income gave itself in many ways 
to the twins. 

Mollie Sherwood was teaching at Eutledge 
Felix, with a look not always peaceful and a 
heart seldom at rest. She began to believe that 
God had chosen every good thing for Bek, and 
she was perfectly satisfied with Bek’s . explanation 
of her husband being chosen through the desire 
and need of her own heart. Mollie, herself, is 
not a happy woman ; she says sometimes that she 
cannot give thanks for her creation. But Bek 
hopes for her. She does not understand Bek’s 
life nor Bek’s work. 

Not very long ago Mrs. Eutledge said to Miss 
Southernwood, who still kept record of the lives 
of her girls: “Of all the girls you are keeping 
trace of, who is the happiest and most successful ? ” 

Unhesitatingly she answered, 

“Eebekah Prentiss.” 


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